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Everything You Missed At Apple's Big iPhone 7 Reveal

This article is more than 7 years old.

11:53am PT: Price and availability. Same pricing for the iPhone 7 as for the iPhone 6 ($649) it replaces but with twice the storage. The iPhone 7 Plus starts at $769. (Apple’s upgrade program is available for those who want to pay in monthly installments and expanding to the UK and China.) Orders start Sept 9 and start shipping on Sept. 16 in 28 countries. It will be available in 30 more countries a week later. Cook comes back on stage to wrap up and introduces the obligatory music act: Sia.

11:45am PT: Schiller continues. 9) Apple Pay – it’s better. 10) Performance: New generation chip called the A10 Fusion with 3.3 billion transistors and two cores that are each 40% than the A9. Graphics performance is also much improved. Obligatory gaming demo looks pretty slick. Schiller says battery life longest ever for an iPhone – on average two hours more battery life than on an iPhone 6.

11:35am PT: Schiller moves on to a brand new, and widely expected, product. 8) AirPods – wireless earbuds that connect easily with whatever Apple device you’re using, be it the iPhone or the Apple Watch. They were made possible by a new W1 chip. They have 5 hours of battery life, and they recharge in their case. Beats is coming out with a new line of wireless headphone using the same technology. (When you wear them, the AirPods look a bit like those old Bluetooth earpieces, but slicker, and you’ll have them both ears.)

11:28am PT: On to other iPhone 7 features. 5) Display – it’s better and brighter. Instagram rep comes on stage to show off new filters for parts of the color spectrum that weren’t visible before. This new version of Instagram will launch later this year. 6) Audio: stereo speakers (one speaker on top and one on bottom). 7) EarPods: OMG no headphone jack, you have to use the Lightning connector (there are 900 million Lightning connector devices in the world). Schiller says it will bring better audio. The new phone will come with Lightning ear buds AND with an adapter for those who have the old headphone jack headsets. Schiller says it took “courage” to get rid of the headphone jack. Maintaining an ancient, single port connector doesn’t make sense, he adds.

11:18am PT: Schiller spends extra time on the next feature: 4) The new 12MP camera: “Everything about it is entirely new,” Schiller says. Wider lens, better image stabilization, better flash with 4 LEDs, better signal processing that improves focus, white balance, tone mapping, noise reduction and more. There a new front facing camera with 7MPs, compared with 4MPs on the older one. One more thing, right? Right. The iPhone 7 Plus has a second, telephoto camera. Allows the iPhone to actually zoom on images (as opposed to digitally zoom) up to 10x with much better quality than before. (It’s actually optical zoom to 2x and “software” zoom after that.) Schiller gives a sneak peak at another feature: bringing shallow depth of field to portraits, like in higher-end cameras. The depth of field feature will come as a software update later this year.

11:07am PT: Phil Schiller comes on stage to talk iPhone 7. Schiller starts to highlight 10 major new features: 1) Design: a new finish called “jet black,” also comes in black, silver, gold and rose gold. 2) Home button: completely redesigned to be customizable, force sensitive and with taptic feedback. 3) Water and dust resistant.

10:59am PT: Cook gives a quick update on iOS 10. Better maps, better management of your home’s smart devices with HomeKit. Next up: Messages: New stickers, new full screen effects and other apps that run on iMessages. “The most advanced mobile operating system deserves the most advanced iPhone,” says Cook. Introduces iPhone 7.

10:52am PT: The Series 2 starts at $369. The original Apple Watch with the Series 2 chip, whih they call Series 1, will cost $269. Preorders begin on Sept 19 and the watches go on sale the following week. The Nike + version will be available late October. That’s it for the Apple Watch and Tim Cook comes back on stage to talk about the big news of the day: iPhone 7.

10:52am PT: There’s a new white ceramic Apple Watch that is harder than the stainless steel model. The Series 2 comes in the luxury Hermès version. And one more thing. Williams introduces and Apple Watch Nike +, targeted at runners and other sports enthusiasts. Nike’s Trevor Edwards comes on stage to introduce it. “It’s your perfect running partner,” Edwards says.

10:43am PT: Apple Watch Series 2 has a new system on a chip that is, you guessed, faster and better. “It’s a crazy amount of performance to be wearing on your wrist,” Williams says. The new display is 2x brighter than the previous one. As expected, GPS is now built-in, allowing features like those in Viewranger, a new hiking app, that provides information about your trails in real time. If you go off route, the watch will alert you.

10:39am PT: Williams introduces next generation of Apple Watch with a video showing it’s waterproof (you can swim with it). It’s called Apple Watch Series 2. Williams says it has been completely reengineered. It’s water resistant to 50 meters. The tricky part was making the speaker water proof. It somehow seals the water out, and next when you play something from the speaker, it ejects whatever water accumulated in the speaker.

10:28am PT: Jeff Williams reviews features of watchOS. Announces that Pokémon GO is coming to the Apple Watch. Invites John Hanke, CEO of Niantic Labs, creator of Pokémon GO. The former Google Maps exec says Pokémon GO has been downloaded more than 500 million times, and 4.6 billion kilometers have been walked by Pokémon GO players. Demo of Pokémon GO on the Apple Watch follows. Pokémon GO is coming to the Apple Watch at an unspecified date before the end of the year.

10:26am PT: Cook comes back on stage to update us on Apple Watch. Cook says Apple is now the second grossing watch company behind Rolex . “We are just getting started,” Cook says. Invites Jeff Williams to update us on the new watch.

10:24am PT: Second reveal of the day. Apple VP Susan Prescott introduces real-time collaboration in iWork (a feature that has long existed in Google Apps and Office 365). “It will change the way you work with classmates, with colleagues and with friends,” Prescott says.

10:20am PT: Cook turns attention to education. Pitches ConnectED – a joint venture between government and industry to bring tech to underserved schools. Apple is supporting 114 schools, giving Macs and iPads to scores of teachers and iPads to 50,000 students. “We believe every student should have the opportunity to code,” Cook says. The company’s program, Everyone Can Code, teaches Apple’s Swift’s language to students at hundreds of schools.

10:10am PT: Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Super Mario, comes on stage to showcase Super Mario Runs, a new game for the iPhone. Crowd goes wild. Game will release in time for the holidays. Also, a set of Super Mario stickers for iMessage will be part of iOS.

10:05am PT: Tim Cook takes the stage and begins with his usual update. First up, Apple Music, which now has 17 Million Subscribers. Cook says is the preferred channel for new artists. Apple Music festival in London begins in 11 days. Next up: The App Store: “The momentum for apps and the App Store have never been greater,” Cook says. 140 billion apps have been downloaded in total. In the last two months, year over year downloads have more than doubled. App Store has generated twice the revenue of its nearest competitor (Cook doesn’t mention, but that would be the Google Play store.) First big reveal of the day: Super Mario is coming to the App Store.

8:00am PT: Much is at stake Wednesday as the world's most valuable company unveils its most valuable product. While many of the details of the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus have leaked, Apple still hopes to make a big splash that helps to revive slumping sales. Apple CEO Tim Cook -- and several of his deputies -- will be on hand to tell us all about the missing headphone jack, a new camera, a new "home" button, software improvements, Siri upgrades, more storage and other features. And it won't all be about the iPhone -- a new version of the Apple Watch is expected to make its debut, along with possible news about macOS, Apple TV and more. FORBES will be on site at the San Francisco Civic Center, covering it all as it happens. Tune in starting at 1 p.m. ET/ 10 a.m. PT.

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