IPhone 7 Plus Shipping Issue, Is It Worth It?

If you belong to the Apple cult and awaiting its latest iPhone idol to be worship, then you are in for a big surprise.  Guess what? The iPhone 7 Plus does not ship until October 7-14, 2016 if you want the 32 GB version and November 28, 2016 if you want the 256 GB version!

Thankfully the I Phone 7 32 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB versions are scheduled to be on time, and pre-orders will be honored on September 16, 2016.  If you're wondering if it is worth it to wait at least another month before you purchase the $900+ smartphone, then here are a few options to leverage to test your decision making skills and vindicate your judgement. Source of information below is attributed to Forbes.com.

Cameras – Main Selling Points

There’s no denying Samsung is outshined Apple 720P low quality cameras in recent years, but the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus may steal it back:

• iPhone 7 – Rear: 12 megapixel sensor, f/1.8 aperture, Focus Pixels, Optical Image Stabilisation, quad-LED (dual tone) flash, 4K video recording. Front: 7MP sensor, f/2.2 aperture, 1080p recording
• iPhone 7 Plus – Rear: Dual 12MP sensors (f/1.8, 28mm & f/2.8, 56mm), Focus Pixels, OIS, 2x optical zoom, quad-LED (dual tone) flash, 4K video recording. Front: 7MP sensor, f/2.2 aperture, 1080p recording

iPhone 7 Plus, but first the iPhone 7 as it has made some significant improvements with a much larger f/1.8 aperture to let in more light (better for low light snaps in particular), a new 6-element lens and the long awaited addition of OIS. There’s also wide color capture for more color accurate photos and a new Apple-designed image signal processor which does the hard-work optimizing images after they are captured.

But it is the iPhone 7 Plus which will capture all the headlines as it is the first iPhone to use a dual camera setup. One camera is identical the wide-angle lens in the iPhone 7, but the second is a telephoto lens enabling 2x optical zoom and far greater depth of field (something Apple pointed out is particularly good for portrait shots).

In addition to this both phones get an upgraded four-LED True Tone flash which is 50 percent brighter, but uses warm and cool lights to produce more natural results. Both phones also have an upgraded 7MP front camera with 1080p video recording, though disappointingly this camera has a slower f/2.2 aperture (the same as last year’s models) so it waits to be seen how it performs in low light.

Storage And Price – The 16GB Curse Is Lifted

Far better news comes with storage and value for money, however, as Apple has at long long last ditched its useless 16GB of base level storage. In fact the company has double storage capacities at every tier so 16GB, 64GB and 128GB have been replaced with 32GB, 128GB and 256GB.

Consequently while prices are unchanged from last year this look better value for money:

• iPhone 7 – 32GB ($649), 128GB ($749), 256GB ($849)
• iPhone 7 Plus – 32GB ($769), 128GB ($869), 256GB ($969)

Needless to say that hardcore iPhone fans will grab the 256GB model, but I suspect many buyers of the previous 128GB flagship may now be happy to save $100 and opt for the same storage as a mid tier option.

Battery Life And Charging – Minimal Improvements

Apple failed to disclose the exact capacities of the batteries in either of its new iPhones, but it did say iPhone 7 owners could expect up to two additional hours of usage compared to the iPhone 6S while iPhone 7 Plus owners will get one additional hour compared to the iPhone 6S Plus.

Displays 

The much marketed 3D Touch is carried over from the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, but wasn’t name dropped once during the entire keynote.

Meanwhile on paper the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus look identical with OLED panels missing yet again and native resolutions moored far behind their flagship 2K (2560 x 1440) Android counterparts:

• iPhone 7 – 4.7-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD, 1334 x 750 pixels (326 ppi), 65.6% screen-to-body ratio
• iPhone 7 Plus – 5.5-inch LED-backlit IPS LCD, 1920 x 1080 pixels (401 ppi), 67.7% screen-to-body ratio

Apple is loudly proclaiming improvements to the quality of both displays highlighting a 25% brighter “cinema standard” Retina HD display. There is also a wider (P3) colour gamut and improved color management, though Apple stopped short of labelling them ‘True Tone’ displays like that on the iPad Pro.

Performance – Major Speed Upgrades

According to some metrics, the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus are still the fastest smartphones on the market one year on, but Apple has not stood still:

• iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus – Apple A10 Fusion chipset: Quad Core CPU, 2GB of RAM (3GB rumored for Plus, but unconfirmed)

I Phone 7 will be the first iPhones to be equipped with quad core processors. Apple claims they will deliver 40% faster CPU performance and up to 50% faster graphics performance than the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus.

Some will bemoan that the iPhone 7 Plus hasn’t got the 3GB of RAM many had predicted, but new iPhones will still deliver performance that even 2017 Android flagships may struggle to live with. Update: some leaks are claiming the Plus will have 3GB but Apple has not confirmed that yet.

 

Design & Size

Apple has made virtually no changes to the external design. Apple fitted both the new iPhones with just a single Lightning port. Adaptors are bundled in the box, but users will now not be able to charge their iPhones and listen to music with wired headphones at the same time. This decision to going to divide a lot of users.

While the practicality of this decision is questionable, elsewhere the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are the most durable iPhones Apple has ever made. They add IP67 dust and water resistance (good for full submersion in up to 1 metre of water for 30 minutes) for the first time while still retaining the rigid Series 7000 Aluminium introduced last year with the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus.

Also aiding durability is the replacement of the physical home button on both models with a touch sensitive surface which provides haptic feedback to mimic the feeling of a click. App developers can also harness the haptic feedback for custom vibrations, which could prove interesting.

Apple has also tidied up the antenna bands, removing them from the back of the phone so they only now appear at the top and bottom edges. Meanwhile the eagled eyed among you will have spotted a small physical change:

• iPhone 7 – 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1 mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.28 in) and 138 g (4.87 oz)
• iPhone 7 Plus – 158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3 mm (6.23 x 3.07 x 0.29 in) and 188 g (6.63 oz)

The answer? While the dimensions are identical to the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are both fractionally lighter at 5g (0.17 oz) and 4g (0.14 oz) respectively. Then again they are still notably heavier than 2014’s iPhone 6 (129g) and iPhone 6 Plus (172g).

Sound Quality

Both the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus gain dual speakers for the first time. Interestingly this is not from what seems like dual speakers at the bottom of the new iPhones (one side is the mic for phone calls), but through upgrading the speaker earpiece so it is loud enough to be an external speaker in its own right. Better external audio is a long awaited iPhone catchup.

As for finishes, you’ll get a wider array of options this year with Rose Gold, Gold, Silver, Black and (for just 128GB and 256GB options) Jet Black but wave goodbye to Space Grey.

Iphone 7: All You Need to Know About What is New and Changed in Less than Minute

What's new with the I Phone 7?

If you're like me, and your I phone  is on it last leg and you're waiting on the I phone 7, then you're in for a big surprise!

Both the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 and 5.5-inch 7 Plus come in the usual array of colors, with the added additions of the super glossy Jet Black and the slightly more ordinary Black. They have a 25 percent brighter display, with a wider color gamut for better color management and reproduction. This time around, the antennas are built right into the chassis, getting rid of those ugly lines from the previous two versions of the phone. Internally, the new phones get stereo speakers and a brand new A10 Fusion chip. And, possibly most importantly, the devices are water- and dust-resistant. But we get it: you want to drill into the big changes. Take a look below.

First of all lets get the big topic out of the way. There is No longer a Headphone Jack for your earbuds. To make the transition away from analog audio easier (if more expensive), Apple developed its own standard to allow wireless headphones to connect to the new iPhones seamlessly. Using its own W1 chip, Apple designed AirPods — or EarPods without wires — that connect to the iPhone without needing to pair like you would with Bluetooth. Beats has also developed two new headphones running on the W1 chip.

Second,the home button is gone. One of the iPhone’s most constant, iconic features is gone: the clicky physical button at the bottom of the phone. In the iPhone 7, the Home button is still there, but it’s no longer mechanical. Instead, like Apple’s new MacBook trackpads, the iPhone will provide touch feedback with the Taptic Engine.

Third, there is a better double camera.  The bigger version of the iPhone 7 comes with two rear-facing cameras, but it’s not going to let you capture your favorite moments in 3D. Instead, each camera has a different focal length, allowing for users to pick between shooting photos with a wide-angle or a telephoto lens. The iPhone 7 Plus will also be able to do some software tricks using those two different focal lengths. One is called "software zoom," where you’ll be able to "zoom" in the camera app between (and beyond) the two different focal lengths. The other is called "depth," and it uses the differences in the lenses to enhance the blur of the background behind your subject — similar to what phones like the recently released Honor 8 are capable of.

Fourth, the water resistant Apple Watch 2. Apple is back with what it calls the Apple Watch Series 2. It has all the requisite specs bumps: it has the brightest screen Apple’s ever shipped — supposedly twice as bright as the last Watch — and its new S2 chip has a dual-core processor that’s supposed to be 50 percent faster than its predecessor. On the outside, you’ve got the same square shape and side buttons, but it now comes in white ceramic along with aluminum and stainless steel. It also includes some snappy-looking new bands, including a custom design from Hermès, and there’s a Nike watch model that’s aimed specifically at guilting runners into regular exercise.

The Series 2 watches will start at $369, and just like Apple has done for iPhones and iPads, it’s keeping the original Watch around as a cheaper alternative. The Series One line, as it’s being called now, will be upgraded with the same S2 chip and sold for $269. Preorders will start September 9th, with the watches coming in late October. And watchOS 3, which was announced earlier this year, will be coming to current Watch owners on September 13th.

Fifth IOS 10 is coming out. iOS 10 is officially coming out on September 13th, bringing the next major iOS update to users after spending the summer in beta. This release represents one of the biggest iOS has ever seen. It means particularly big things for Siri, which has gotten smart enough to handle image searches and handle transcribing voicemails. But iOS 10 shows Apple becoming much more open, with Siri and iMessage now opening up to developers. Users will also see more widgets and better notifications, and Apple has extended Continuity to include Universal Clipboard, which lets you copy text and images on your phone and paste them on your Mac.

Availability?

The I Phone 7 will be available for purchase on Sept. 16, 2016.  You can start pre-ordering the phone on Sept 9, 2016. 

XCOM 2 - All You Need to Know Before Making Your Purchase

Are you a human or a number on a spreadsheet?

Taking place 20 years after humanity shockingly lost the war we played in 2012’s excellent XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you lead the rebel squad in a fight to overthrow a decades-long alien occupation of the Earth. In XCOM 2, you march a four to six-person squad into battle against -superior alien forces.

What I love the most about the XCOM series is its unpredictability and dare of attachment to your customized soldiers. While playing I consider myself a tough as nails Commander that makes the best decision possible given the intel i have on my enemy. But XCOM will make you shed a tear while watching your squad of rebels get wiped out from the roll of the dice turn-based combat engine. Sometimes their is no upgrade that can counter your bad luck, or a poor decision that results in your squadie getting left in the open exposed to an alien's overpowered attack.

Turn-Based System
If you're results-oriented or a big fan of percentages, then you will love XCOM 2. Before you attack, you are given a display of your success rate percentage or your chance to kill and damage you enemy. Deciding whether to take cover near by half or full shielded areas reduce or increase your defense from enemy attacks.

Diversity Matters
Nothing like being enslaved and facing the end of the world to make you band together for the common cause of freedom, lol. In XCOM 2, developers wanted to focus on ensure diversity inclusion was a top priority.   Developers stated that gender, race and nationality do not play a factor in your attributes, so each character was designed with random attributes to benefit the squad.

In a interview, Firaxis Senior Producer Garth DeAngelis said, "The company philosophy is to build game experiences that stand the test of time—it just follows that most of our games have this natural representation of diversity. Since the world is a part of our game experiences, for both Civ and XCOM, it speaks to a global audience more naturally. But all in all, we’re a gameplay and experience-driven studio, and we simply want to create engaging and fun experiences for all types of people."

Intelligent AI

This time around, enemies are geared to compensate for the concealment advantage. The Advent Shieldbearer is a prime example of this: if an enemy survives and isn’t disabled, it’ll activate a power that gives it and every ally around him an energy barrier that’ll absorb some significant damage. You have to be careful about who you shoot first, because it makes a big difference who’s alive when they start fighting back.

When you take out two of the three aliens in a group, the last one may be smart enough to retreat and group up with another nearby group. The AI displaying a will to survive, gives you one more thing to leverage when engaging enemies: leave no survivors, or the next fight might be harder.

What is new?
XCOM’s five soldier classes received an upgrade with new and diverse ability sets. The Specialist’s remote hacking and healing abilities introduces risk-reward opportunities, especially against robotic enemies. Augmenting those abilities with weapon upgrades such as combining a Sharpshooter’s Killzone skill with a high-capacity ammo mod lets him take up a six reaction shots in one turn.

One great change is the way you have to manage the engineering staff by assigning them to specific rooms. They can accelerate build times or accelerate progress on things like soldier healing times or increasing power output. You can see their names and faces once in awhile, making them feel like people rather than a number on a spreadsheet, even if they don’t have unique stats. Unfortunately the science staff doesn’t get the same treatment – they have names, but after you recruit them you’ll never see those names again.

The character creator very limited with a small number of faces available with no sliders to adjust them, the only body type is peak physical condition, and accessories like hats and glasses are sparse. Oddly, modders will fix this problem.  

For base-building you don’t have to stress out about adjacency for resource bonuses.  Instead, the variety here comes from the layout of power nodes in the layout of your captured alien vessel, where the special power-granting tiles might be accessible or near the end.  Reading the map and adapting is important. Starting from a random location, your mobile base has to stay ahead of the aliens by darting around the map making contact with resistance cells in various regions, collecting supplies, and launching raids against the aliens.

Overall

With a focus on variety and replayability, XCOM 2 tried to fix all the complaints gamers had with XCOM.  The game isn't perfect with a few cosmetic glitches and bugs, but it can be fixed in a patch.  If you are a good decision maker under pressure and love a challenge, then XCOM 2 is worth the investment. Overall, with new tactical combat, unpredictable maps and randomized objectives and loot, the game is solid and has a lot of potential to keep those interested in a turn-based, strategy game hooked for hundreds of hours.