i phon 7 Apple tech

the iPhone 7 may be the best version of Apple's smartphone to date, but it's garnering lukewarm reactions from reviewers and pundits.

The practical improvements in the new iPhone are praiseworthy, wrote Andrew Cunningham in his review for Ars Technica, but he cautioned would-be buyers about the price they would have to pay for the upgrade.

"The iPhone 7 is a very good phone with the sorts of logical, useful upgrades that Apple typically delivers with new hardware," Cunningham wrote. "Waterproofing and better battery life have been common iPhone feature requests for years, and the camera and speed improvements are nothing to sneeze at, but you'll need to buy into Apple's vision of the future if you want to get them."

button and wires

That vision includes a world without buttons or wires.

Among the new features in iPhone 7 is the replacement of a physical home button with pressure sensors and haptic vibration motors that simulate the feel of a button.

"It's clear that Apple is continuing its approach of removing any mechanical moving parts from their devices where possible, IHS markit Senior Director Ian Fogg told TechNewsWorld.

Apple also has omitted the headphone jack in the new iPhone.

"This move was done with the clear vision of making the iPhone experience completely wireless in the future,"Creative Strategies President Tim Bajarin told TechNewsWorld.

Prototype Phone?

While some reviewers saw the iPhone 7 as a harbinger of Apple things to come, they couldn't hide their disappointment in the product in their hands.

"The entire time I was using the iPhone 7, I felt like I had a prototype of next year's rumored drastic iPhone redesign disguised as an iPhone 6," Nilay Patel wrote in The Verge.

"All those bold bets on the future are legitimately exciting," he continued, "but here in the present using the iPhone 7 in a case feels a lot like using an iPhone 6s with a weirder home button and more adapters."

There's more to the new iPhone than the here and now, David Pierce, writing for Wired, also suggested.

"So, no, the iPhone 7 won't blow your mind with its design or features," he noted.

"It's still a fantastic phone. And philosophically, it feels like Apple is throwing open a door. The iPhone 7 might not be a revolution, but it might be the catalyst for lots of them," Pierce continued. "Your phone will be better in a few months, and even better a few months after that. And wouldn't that be exciting?"