What to expect from Apple’s September 7th event

If you hadn’t heard, Apple is hosting its annual September event today to launch the iPhone 7. Here’s what to expect in particular.

No headphone port

It’s undoutedly been the device’s biggest area of controversy throughout the past year but it is widely expected that Apple will continue its war on ports by eliminating the headphone jack from the device and replacing it with an extra speaker. Whether this is an effort to make people purchase bluetooth headphones (it just so happens that Apple owns one of the largest headphone brands on the planet), or Apple’s own proprietary adapters, it would appear that the company is hell-bent in moving away from the frankly antiquated 3.5mm headphone port.

Better speakers

As previously mentioned, the headphone port is expected to make way for a bumped up speaker – and about time too. The speaker in the iPhone has been one of the device’s biggest flaws since it was first launched in 2007 and brands such as HTC and Samsung have taken advantage of Apple’s inability to keep up. Hopefully, we should be getting bolstered sound from this new iPhone.

Improved camera(s)

The camera has been one of the iPhone’s strongest points for the past couple of models and it certainly seems that Apple isn’t resting on its laurells. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus smartphones are rumoured to sport two rear 12MP cameras that can record 4K resolution videos in 60 frames per second as well as four camera flash LEDs – instead of the two LEDs that are in iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus models.

3D Touch 2.0

3D Touch – a feature introduced with the iPhone 6s, and largely underutilised by developers since – will likely see a bit of tweaking in much the same way as how Touch ID was improved in the iPhone 6 to actually make it a vital feature. If 3D Touch can be made into less of a novelty, it can potentially change the way that users navigate around their devices. Don’t be surprised to also see an improved display with a wider colour gamut.

Water resitance

I call this one a bit of an outsider, but the rumour mill has been circulating around and has come to the conclusion that the iPhone 7 and 7s will have water resistant features to rival Samsung and Sony. I personally think that this would require too much of a drastic change to the iPhone’s form factor for it to be included in this iteration, but Apple surely will include the technology in future devices.

Apple Watch 2

Apple has already shown off its completely overhauled redesign of Watch OS and it probably makes sense – over a year since the original Watch’s launch – that the company will reveal a new model. Features floating about the internet of the puported ‘Apple Watch S’ include GPS, a barometer, improved battery life and greater waterproofness.

The event itself is able to be watched on the company’s website at 6pm UK time and PCR will be back with a roundup of announcements once we can make sense of what’s happened.