Technology desk – Technology giant Apple on Wednesday unveiled the much awaited next generation iPhone styled iPhone7 and iPhone7s.

“It’s the best iPhone we have ever created,” chief executive officer Tim Cook announced at the stage. The new phone came with 10 major new features compared to the previous series.

Senior vice president of hardware engineering Phil Schiller explained the features to the public.

The slick new design, the phone has a high-gloss finish, with seamless lines all around. The camera is more smoothly enclosed and protected.

Home button changed

The home button has changed in a major way: it is no longer a button you click, which is what you’re used to. The home button is now “force-sensitive, solid-state” and runs on a “taptic engine.” It feels more like the trackpad on a laptop. This change was widely rumored ahead of time.

Water and dust-resistance

The iPhone is now water and dust-resistant. To illustrate those feature, Apple showed a photograph of a kid falling into a pool, holding his iPhone.

iPhone 7

Camera

Phil Schiller said the camera of the new iPhone is something different. He said it was perhaps the most beloved feature of iPhone for many customers, and it’s why this part of the phone got more time than any other.

The iPhone 7 camera is a “huge advancement in photography for cell phones,” Schiller said.

The new camera has: an optical image stabilizer that steadies shaky hands; a wider, six-element lens to allow more light to the sensor; a 12-megapixel sensor that is 30 per cent more energy-efficient; the flash now has 4 LEDs and puts out 50 per cent more light for taking a photo in dark environments.

The new camera also uses machine learning to detect people and faces.

The new camera “can take a beautiful selfie,” Schiller said. “We are not saying to throw out all your DSLRs…. but we are saying this is the best camera ever on any phone.”

Retina HD display

The display is 25 per cent brighter than the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and displays cinema standard “wide color gamut” range of colors. To demonstrate the significance of the new color range, Instagram head of design Ian Spalter came on stage in a colorful shirt and had someone snap a photo of him, live, and convert it to a GIF-style Instagram boomerang.

Stereo-quality speaker

With one at top and one at bottom, the new speakers are of much higher quality. They have an increased range and will really blow you away, said the company VP.

Headphone jack is gone

Apple removed the headphone jack, and will connect its earbuds over its lightning USB port. Schiller said that many people have headphones that connect through a headphone jack, so Apple is offering an adapter.

Removing the headphone jack really comes down to “courage,” a statement many critics of removing the jack might pick apart, said Schiller

Apple AirBuds

Airbuds

As part of removing the headphone jack, Apple unveiled a completely new product: Airbuds, wireless earbuds that connect using Apple’s W1 chip and can access Siri with a double-tap.

“We believe in a wireless future,” design head Jony Ive said in a video. A single step connects Airbuds to iPhone 7 or to Apple Watch 2.

Apple AirBuds do not come with the phone; they’ll cost $159.

Advances to ApplePay

On the new iPhone 7, ApplePay will work with FeliCa, the NFC technology in Japan; thus Apple can launch ApplePay in Japan in October. The iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, and Apple Watch 2 will all have this new version of ApplePay.

Better performance

Apple’s chip team, Schiller said, “is killing it in performance.” The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus has a new generation chip: A10 Fusion. The new chip is 120 times faster than the chip in the first iPhone, and it is 50 per cent faster than the graphics-loading of the previous A9 chip.

The new chip will enable “console-level gaming” on the iPhone. (Gaming was also a central theme touted on the new Apple Watch.)

“There is absolutely no question,” Schiller said, “A10 Fusion is the fastest chip ever in a smartphone.”

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus has the longest battery life yet, Apple says. The iPhone 7 starts at $649 while iPhone 7 Plus starts at $769.

The 16GB iPhone has gone. Its storage size is now 32GB, 128GB and 256GB.