Transcription
It's the best iPhone that we have ever created. It makes all the things you do every day so much better. There is a beautiful new refined design, water and dust resistance, the best camera ever made in any smartphone. This is iPhone 7.
People have asked why we would remove the analog headphone jack. It really comes down to one word: courage. The courage to move on and do something new that betters all of us. This is the best iPhone we have ever made. I'm excited. I hope you are.
The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus managed to simultaneously be some of the most popular, controversial, and innovative smartphones of all time. Released back in late 2016, the iPhone 7 was the first time Apple would drop the headphone jack, leaving the phone as the martyr and permanent poster child of corporate greed, as eventually the vast majority of other smartphone makers would fall in line. The iPhone 7 would also bring one of the first camera setups with multiple lenses, specifically on the 7 Plus with its telephoto lens. This is a phone that has had a lasting legacy and it's impacted the entire tech industry in so many different ways. Not all good, not all bad, but it's definitely one of the more influential phones of the last decade.
In any case, hey, how's it going? I'm Josh, R91 Tech. And shortly after finding out the iPhone 7 wouldn't be getting iOS 16, I posted a full-blown retrospective that took way too long to make, only for a bogus copyright hit a number of months later. Or in me to edit chunks out and leaving the video in a state I felt just wasn't very cohesive. So today, we're giving it another shot, but with a modern lens. Being a year and a half later, while this video is going to follow the same structure of the original video, it's also been heavily updated to reflect iOS 17 and what we've seen Apple do since. Time stamps will be in the description below, and the original video is still available to channel members and will be linked in the description. But for now, let's get started.
We have a new generation chip, A10 Fusion, 40% faster than the A9 chip. And if you're coming from an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, it's twice as fast than the A8. The jumps in performance are just staggering. A10 Fusion is the most powerful chip ever in a smartphone.
In June 2022, Apple unveiled iOS 16 to the world. This update would bring some major features, including a completely revamped, customizable lock screen. But it would also mark the discontinued support of multiple iPhones. First, you had the 2015 iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, which had already received an unexpected year of support in iOS 15. But then also, somewhat surprisingly, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. While losing out on major iOS versions doesn't mean your phone will suddenly become obsolete, unusable, or even necessarily an unpleasant experience, it does mean that slowly but surely, more and more apps will no longer keep providing updates for older software, and the user will forever be without any new features, which can leave a phone feeling bloated and stale. Unfortunately, software support is an inherently temporary service. Losing it is a fate inevitable for technology, as obsolescence is a necessary evil. Every year brings more progress, but this means software only gets more and more demanding until the hardware just can't keep up.
However, it's not as black and white as the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus simply being too old and slow to run iOS 16. There were some rumors pointing to this happening, but I ignored them, as surely Apple wouldn't do that, not when the iPhone 6s and SE were both still older and less powerful. Not to mention all those iPads that run on older chipsets, including the same chipsets in the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 7. If they discontinued those phones, wouldn't those old iPads also not get iPad OS 16? Well, you would think so, but this didn't turn out to be the case, with even the fifth gen iPad, which has the exact same processor as in the iPhone 6s, getting the new update. And we'll talk about that a bit later on. But iOS 16 would come to almost every device running iOS 15 with a few notable exceptions. On the iPad OS side, it's only the iPad Air Second Generation and iPad Mini 4th Generation, both of which running iPhone 6 era processors. They both were left behind on iPad OS 15, as you would expect them to be. Frankly, it's impressive they got as long as they did. The iPad Air 2 got 8 years of software support, which is crazy.
Then on the iOS side, we saw the retiring of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus from 2015, the first iPhone SE from early 2016, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus from late 2016, and finally the iPod Touch 7th generation from mid-2019, which Apple only stopped producing in 2022. At this point, it seems like Apple's maybe set into a pattern. In 2023, the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and iPhone 10 all lost out on iOS 17. All these phones were released in 2017. That makes sense. It goes to reason that in 2024, the iPhone 10R, 10S, and 10S Max all won't get iOS 18, although as of making this video, of course, there's no confirmation of that. Ultimately, while the iPhone 7, 8, and 10 all felt like they probably could have managed some more updates in terms of just pure performance, they did still all end up receiving six years of major iOS support, a superbly impressive number for any mobile device. Most Android phones, of course, are lucky to even get two years of major updates.
Notably, some companies like Google and Samsung have been a lot better with this in recent years. Samsung now guarantees four years of big updates and five years of security updates, whereas Google is now guaranteeing that the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, released 2023, will get support until at least October 2030. That's insanely impressive, and immediately the tech community would rejoice upon hearing all this, saying Google has now set the bar for software support. And I agree, they have done so as far as Androids go. But let's not get out of hand here. Older Pixels are still only getting so many updates, and guaranteed support has already run its course for the Pixel 5 that launched in only 2020. Basically, put your money where your mouth is. It's great that Google is doing this, but the proof is in the pudding. And Apple's already not only hit these numbers but have done it with much older phones and as such, much lesser powered hardware. The iPhone 6s actually did receive seven full years of iOS support, and the iPhone 7, 8, and 10 all six years. Years. Apple could come out and say the iPhone 15 Pro will get 10 years of support, but it wouldn't really matter if they did, because anyone can say anything they want to. It's a free country. It's all just talk until it's actually been done. I guess what I'm saying here is that Apple has been by and far the best at keeping their users up to date in the long term. And my, being left behind, whether on iOS 15 or 16 or even 17, this is by no means a death sentence. As mentioned, it's not only do apps still generally give you some support for a few years, but Apple themselves have actually been terrific with still continuously delivering security updates. Actually, since the iPhone SE, 6s, and 7 have all been considered officially unsupported, they've still seen a full 10 updates in only one year, from iOS 15.7 to iOS 15.8, released October 2023. And depending on when you're actually watching this video, there's a very good shot there's been even more updates in the meantime. As for how long Apple will keep this up, it's impossible to say for sure, but the 2013 iPhone 5S most recently received a security update January 2023, and it's still all the way back on iOS 12. Clearly, Apple does care about their users on older devices, and most definitely to a far greater extent than what we've seen from the competition in the same time frame.
So for some perspective here, if we're comparing apples to apples, or apples to Androids in this case, I'm so sorry. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus came out the fall of 2016 with iOS 10. The Samsung Galaxy S7 came out the March of 2016 running Android 6, and due to Samsung's previous lack of update support, it only received up to Android 8 in mid-'18. Typically around this time, the yearly Galaxy Note would also only get two updates, but the Galaxy Note 7 is a unique exception for obvious reasons. So if we push things into Samsung's favor and look at the Galaxy S8 from early 2017, while we did have that huge redesign, we also only got two years of big updates, with the last coming in 2019 with Android 9. Keep in mind that happened around the same time that the iPhone 5S was still technically supported on iOS 12, six years after it came out. The point in all this is that the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus have aged really, really well, especially when looking at the competition from when it came out. Admittedly, Google did better than Samsung. The first Google Pixel came out late 2016 running Android 7.1, and it would get until Android 10, which is better, but still not great. And the iPhone 7 blows it away, regardless.
But of course, the iPhone 6s came out late 2015, a year before the iPhone 7, and they're both ending on the same version of iOS. This might seem a bit unfair to the iPhone 7, and it means that the 6s, for now, retains its title as the longest supported smartphone of all time. However, this has happened before. It's not coming completely out of the blue. The iPhone 6 is stuck forever on iOS 12, just like the year older iPhone 5S. This was because the iPhone 6 wasn't much of a jump from the iPhone 5S in processing power. The 5S was the first 64-bit smartphone ever, and so the six ended up being more of a redesign, bringing that bigger size without the A8 being a massive upgrade over the A7 when it came to actual power. The iPhone 6s coming after the iPhone 6 also doubled the amount of RAM, which of course significantly increased potential for how much the iPhone could handle doing at once, and this would assist it massively for longevity.
Now, the iPhone 7 to the iPhone 8. Well, there's a jump, but the A10 to the A11 isn't the same sort of generational gap that the A8 to A9 was. That being said, the iPhone 7 from the iPhone 6s isn't necessarily a small upgrade when it comes to processing power. It was a substantial jump, a pretty typical yearly one, but still. And so it's a bit more surprising Apple decided to go this way, especially because the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are very similar to the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus when it comes to technical specifications. Of course, those phones have the A11 Bionic chipset, which is naturally faster, but not by a huge margin, and they have the same amount of RAM, being two gigs in the smaller phones and three in the bigger ones to handle the telephoto camera lens. There's no doubt in my mind that if Apple really wanted to, the iPhone 7 absolutely could have run iOS 16, but for whatever reason, they chose not to make this happen.
Now, maybe it was out of the goodness of their own hearts. How would that be? Well, maybe iOS 16 genuinely would have been slow on the iPhone 7. Look no further than the iPhone 4S on iOS 9 if you need an example of an iPhone getting support for too long. But of course, there are iPads worse than the 7 running iPad OS 16, which is essentially the same thing. It's a tough question to answer, but Apple definitely put a lot of thought into it, regardless. And as much as they hyped up the A10 chipset at its launch, it wouldn't stop the iPhone 7 from dying at the same time as the 2015 iPhone 6S. For better or for worse, we have created a product that is the most deliberate evolution of our original founding design. So it's a seamless surface between the glass and the aluminum back. All around it is a stainless steel Apple logo. The new integrated antennas are built so subtly you can barely see them at all anymore. And of course, closure creates the housing for the camera. It is a beautiful new design. iPhone 7 is the most singular, the most evolved representation of this design.
Now, aside from all these pure power and numbers, there's a different generational type gap worth mentioning, but it's one between the iPhone 7 and 6s. As Apple moved on in a lot of different ways between those two years, using the iPhone 7 as the first stepping stone to the iPhone 10 design and marking kind of a shift in how they made their iPhones moving forward. This gives another reason to think the iPhone 7 should have gotten another year over the 6s, because there was a decent shift. And so let's analyze exactly why that is by looking at what Apple upgraded. We'll cover the biggest change with the telephoto lens last and start with the basics here. The iPhone 7 was aluminum like the 6s, but it cleaned up the design significantly and it brought in the capacitive touch home button. No longer did the home button physically push down and click, but instead mimicked a click with haptics. That taptic engine would be used throughout iOS and adds a lot to the experience. It's hard to imagine going back through devices without it once you've been using, I guess, the iPhone 7 or above. Now, the home button felt a little odd at first, but I always liked it, and it was objectively better, both because it was faster. There's no physical distance for the home button to be pushed in, and thus the device registers the click instantly. And as well as that, less moving parts means less breakable parts, which is especially ideal with one of the most common issues on older iPhones being that the home button would eventually fail by becoming stuck or sticky or etc.
The iPhone 7 also managed to improve the experience in a lot of minor ways, refining that iPhone 6 design by moving the ugly plastic antenna bands to the edges and bringing in some of the most colors we've ever seen on an iPhone right from the get-go. We had jet black, black, silver, gold, and rose gold, with the two most interesting to me being the black and jet black. These were the first actually black iPhones we'd seen since like the 2012 iPhone 5, and that phone had a very good blue tinge to it, so you could really argue the 2011 iPhone 4S, and we haven't had anything quite like this since. The matte black finish was absolutely gorgeous and premium feeling and had the added benefit of making MKBHD very happy because matte black all the things. This is without a doubt one of my favorite looking iPhones of all time. Even though I'm not really a fan of the iPhone 6 look, at least in hindsight, this was such an improvement. And it helps to me that this was the last aluminum phone, and thus one of the final fairly durable devices, as we've since moved to glass backs for wireless charging, which is great. But dropping a phone with glass on both sides is much more likely to cause an issue than dropping a phone with glass on only one side.
And then there was that jet black iPhone 7, which if I really wanted to, I could probably make a video about all on its own. Unfortunately, I don't actually own this iPhone, and the only footage I have of it is some crappy iPhone video I took of my friend's dad's phone when I was hanging out at his place like five years ago. Though, hey, apparently we had snow, so that was cool, I guess. But the video from Apple introducing it shows it off really well. It's a glossy pitch black that's extremely reflective and almost completely unique to the iPhone 7, with the one exception of maybe the iPhone 3G and 3GS with their glossy black plastic casings. But this wasn't plastic. It was a special type of paint that gave it that glossy finish, and it looked fantastic out of the box. Although it does have the tendency to scratch and chip a lot easier than most phones, which in all fairness, Apple was pretty clear on from the get-go. It's a really, really nice phone, but maybe don't put it in the same pocket as your keys.
And then there was the Product Red iPhone that came a bit later on. This was the first time Apple brought Product Red to iPhone. They had done it before with iPod, and it gave a red color to iPhone. It was something much more vibrant than they usually went for, with the only really colorful iPhone being the iPhone 5C from 2013, and every other color past that being kind of a dull palette. These were premium devices, so you had these premium colors, and the red wasn't that, although it looked absolutely fantastic. Now, for some reason, Apple did design to have a white front. I never understood this. The white bezels, I felt like, didn't look as good as the black bezels. And Product Red hit the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus the next year and brought the black bezels on the front, making everyone happy because then, hey, you got the best of both worlds. Product Red is really cool, a bit of the money goes to charity. I won't go into it, but it was just a really nice thing to see Apple do because it's a win-win for everyone. Charity wins, the user wins because they can buy a cool red phone. Hard to complain there. And Apple's been doing Product Red on at least one of their iPhones every year since.
So beyond the colors, this was the first stereo speaker equipped iPhone. And this wasn't due to any particularly unique hardware addition. Apple basically just finally had the smarts to say, "Hey, why don't we use that earpiece speaker that's doing kind of nothing as a normal speaker, not just one that activates for phone calls?" And bam, now sound isn't just coming from the bottom of your phone, but both sides, giving a louder, clearer, and wildly more impressive audio clarity. It was a subtle but big move, and that's what mostly the iPhone 7 brought. A lot of small but kind of big things, things we take for granted now. And while the iPhone 8 would kind of finally finish off a lot of the things it was still missing, such as wireless charging and fast charging, the iPhone 7 was the start of that. But that's a very positive outlook on the iPhone 7. What most people will justifiably want me to bring up is the most disliked smartphone change, quite possibly ever. I wouldn't even call it a controversy, as it was so universally reviled. And naturally, I can only be talking about what Apple described as being a courageous decision. And I think this is most important of all. When you have a vision, you want to get there as fast as you can and make it as great as it can be. And we do have a vision for how audio should work on mobile devices. Courage. Courage. Courage. The courage to move on, do something new that betters all of us.
Apple removing the headphone jack is something I've always considered an inherently anti-consumer move. They said it was because of old technology, but they never really gave any reason for why it was so antiquated besides that it was old. How long has the wheel been around, exactly? The headphone jack just didn't need to be removed. It was small enough that it could fit without too much impact on battery life or any other components. And while Apple did partly use water resistance as an excuse, the Samsung Galaxy phones had water resistance with headphone jacks for years before they finally got rid of it too, which makes this point kind of null. What Apple really wanted to do was sell their AirPods, which of course also came out around this time. Now, AirPods are fantastic. I would argue they're actually one of Apple's greatest innovations since Steve Jobs has passed away, better than the Apple Watch in my opinion. When AirPods came out, there really were no good purely wireless earbuds. They existed, but they were all very expensive, and they still had all the issues that came with Bluetooth headphones. They were a pain to connect to your phone, usually there was reliability and consistency issues, and AirPods just got rid of that. The setup was absurdly easy, and of course, now everyone and their mother seem to have a pair, at least if you have an iPhone. I think what I'm trying to get at here is that AirPods were a great product that didn't need the removal of the headphone jack to sell.
Now, you could argue a couple things for getting rid of the headphone jack, and I have genuinely seen ironic defenders of this move. And hey, if you really feel that way, then fair enough. I mean, it looks nicer on the bottom, you've got the speaker grills on both sides of a Lightning port. But I still don't think I'll fully ever get over it, and I don't think we ever should. One thing that bugs me about this event is how manipulative the presentation is. Every time the headphone jack is brought up, the word "old" constantly is thrown in there. They also always call it "analog," which I think is intentional to make you not think of headphones, but instead think of older technology. Just listen to a couple lines here and how it's phrased. "Now, we know there are people in the world who do have some analog old connected devices out there. Why we would remove the analog headphone jack? I mean, it's been with us a really long time. The source of this phono min, phono jack is over 100 years old. Our inbox headphones and to adapt through analog interfaces and maintaining an ancient single-purpose analog big connector doesn't make sense because that space is at a premium." Now, calling this manipulative might be a term, maybe it's just salesmanship, but to me, it comes across as patronizing and condescending, and it really bugs me because, in my opinion, there was no reason to really get rid of the headphone jack. He supposedly was going to give three. The first one was courage, I kid you not. The second one was the most reasonable, and that was to make more space within the iPhone 7. Problem here is, a headphone jack doesn't take up a lot of space. And that leads into the third point where he says they have a vision for the future of audio and they want to push that as fast as possible, and this is the way to do that. Then they go on to show off AirPods, and that's what this really was all about. It was to sell AirPods.
Regardless, Apple was doing this intentionally with the iPhone 7 to kind of get the controversy over with. At this point, they likely knew the iPhone 10 was coming out the next year, and considering how much that phone would bring to the table, they didn't need a removal of a headphone jack to be hanging over its head when it would finally launch. Doing it with the iPhone 7, a relatively unexciting phone, was a good move. And so I have to give them props for that. They're definitely good when it comes to PR and marketing. And you know what? There was some good that came from all this. Most of it being water resistance, as we got the IP67 standard for the first time on iPhone. Again, it felt like a real shift away from the iPhone 6s and the iPhones of old. The iPhone 7 was definitely purposely a stepping stone to the iPhone 10. A lot of the main improvements, with the exception of the telephoto camera, were things you probably wouldn't notice nor care about in light of the big things the iPhone 10 brought. So with the iPhone 7, they could heavily market water resistance, the stereo speakers, or the small little design changes as a bigger deal than they actually were. And then, of course, the telephoto camera lens was the front and center of all of the marketing. Whereas if that had first come to the iPhone 10, it wouldn't be the big thing, the screen would be. It also helped to get the headphone jack controversy over with. If they didn't, and they took it away with the iPhone 10, you'd have that controversy hanging over its head throughout its entire launch. That's not something you want. You want people to forget about it. And sure enough, while you did see it mentioned with the iPhone 10 here and there, it was not nearly the same level of a big deal.
Let's talk about the camera. A huge advancement. There's an optical image stabilizer in all iPhones. There's a new 7-megapixel FaceTime HD camera. If that is the best camera we've ever made in an iPhone, what is left? There are now two 12-megapixel cameras built in the iPhone 7 Plus. The other is a telephoto 56mm lens. This is a picture that was taken with a very high-end camera. The gentleman in the front is pin sharp and focus, and that background has a beautiful blur. What they're able to do is when we take a picture, create a depth map of that image from the two cameras in the software, keep the people in the front sharp and focus, and apply a beautiful blur to the background. This was taken on an iPhone 7 Plus.
Now, the biggest thing that came with the iPhone 7, or more specifically the 7 Plus, was of course the second camera lens, being a 12-megapixel telephoto camera lens that gave two times zoom, which means you could zoom in with much better clarity than ever before. Along with this, although it didn't come at launch, Apple would update their phones with Portrait Mode, which would blur the background behind the subject, giving for this natural DSLR kind of bokeh look. Portrait Mode has improved massively over the past six years, and while it wasn't amazing when it came out, and still is flawed for sure, it still absolutely works and can take some fantastic photos. This was an amazing addition to smartphones, and Apple was one of the first to kind of have something like this. While there had been other alternatives, the Portrait Mode on iPhone 7 Plus really brought it into the mainstream, and you saw other Android manufacturers kind of all at it very quickly after, if they didn't already have some sort of blurring option.
The iPhone 7 also started at 32 GB versus the iPhone 6s being 16 gigs still, which was brutal. Can you imagine being on iOS 15 right now with 16 gigs? Well, some of you might not have to imagine, because that might in fact be your phone, and I'm so sorry if that's the case. Luckily, iPhone 7 bumped this up to 32 gigs at minimum, and I'm glad they finally changed that, and they would eventually stop selling 16 gigs all together, including on the iPhone SE, and moved to to 32 gigs for the baseline for all of their phones being sold.
All in all, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus might just be one of the most boring, forgettable, and most scarcely upgraded of any mainline iPhone ever to release. And while I would have argued otherwise with the telephoto camera lens and A10 chipset as the highlights, it does really hurt the 7's legacy to see it retired at the same time as a phone that came out a year prior. It's a strange move on Apple's part, and not one that I'm necessarily angry at, but it's one that I didn't expect. When looking back at the history of iPhone, there's a few standouts for uninteresting or unimportant upgrades. Typically the S-style successors, with some of the most common reactions in the past being me to phones like the iPhone 3GS, the iPhone 4S, 5S, 6S, and so on. And the iPhone 7, for all that Apple hyped it up, kind of felt like one of those S upgrades. And yet, I would even argue it might have been worse than most of those S upgrades, as they all pushed the limits of iPhone in power and capability. The 3GS was literally twice as fast as the iPhone 3G, which was the second iPhone, and it lasted for four years of iOS support versus only three. The 4S brought the first 8-megapixel camera over the already upgraded iPhone 4 camera, the first dual-core chipset, and of course, Siri, getting a ridiculous five years of iOS support from the beginning of iOS 5 to the end of iOS 9 in 2016. Now, yeah, it got way too slow on its final versions, but the fact that it could even run them in the first place was a bit of a technical marvel, given especially how quickly those early smartphones kept getting better and better year over year. Upgrades for smartphones have frankly just gotten slower. There's not as much to upgrade every year beyond the cameras and performance, because there's just less and less to do to perfect this slab of glass that's in your hands.
The 5S was a pretty big upgrade over the iPhone 5, even if it didn't seem like it at the time, bringing the gold color and I guess Touch ID, the first 64-bit chipset ever in a smartphone, and it also received a record-breaking six years of support, all the way to iOS 12. And then there's the iPhone 7, a predecessor, the 2015 iPhone 6s, a phone that actually brought a lot, even if it didn't seem like it. It fixed the durability issues of the iPhone 6 and it brought a much better camera, processor, and perhaps most underrated of all, the pink rose gold color. No, I'm kidding. 3D Touch and 3D Touch naturally would also be in the iPhone 7. It's something I severely miss, but we saw it in almost two aspects with that capacitive touch button, as it can feel how forcefully you're pressing on it, as well as the regular 3D Touch experience. Of course, the iPhone 6s would beat the 5S's record with seven years of iOS updates from late 2015 to late 2022, since which point it's received 10 security updates, bringing the 6s's lifespan to eight years and counting. Who knows just how long it'll get, but you can bet the iPhone 7 will be right there along with it.
The iPhone 7 is not an S upgrade, like literally, it's not an S upgrade. And it brought a somewhat different design, which is indicative of, you know, a regular numbered upgrade. But does it actually stack up to a normal new iteration of iPhone? Telephoto camera lens and Portrait Mode were awesome on the 7 Plus. He also got an extra gig of RAM on the 7 Plus. The A10 chipset was respectable. Water resistance was much needed. The speakers and capacitive home button were nice changes. And of course, the design was the perfect refinement of the aluminum iPhone 6 era. But that's the thing, it was still within that iPhone 6 era. And I'm afraid it'll be lost to that with the iPhone 8 coming out the next year and again, not bringing much over the 7, but more or less perfecting what Apple started in 2014. When it comes to this era of phones, you'll probably think about the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 8, the first and the last. And that iPhone 8 was a really strong phone. It's what we've seen in the design with the 2020 and 2022 iPhone SE phones. We haven't seen any new Plus models, but there's a reason this small one has stuck around. It's solid, sleek, well-loved by users, and very practical. Plus, some people don't want to give up the home button, and that's totally fair.
The iPhone 7 was, in my opinion, the iPhone 6S-S. There's no getting around the fact that while yes, some major features were added, and the design and colors were great, it just didn't push the envelope. It was safe, expected, just a typical iPhone upgrade. And you know what? I think that's a good thing. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus for 2016 was a perfectly solid phone, still within the era of home buttons and bezels. And as stated earlier, it easily surpasses its competitors of the time period, at least in longevity. It's still being relevant and even being talked about is not something that can be said for most 2016 smartphones, beyond a "how does it hold up X amount of years later" type review, like I've done for the Pixel or S6 and S7 in the past. There are very interesting things worth exploring about those phones, but if I was talking about them right now, it all be in past tense because only two or three years of support for better or for worse means you have people move on faster. There's a reason iPhones retain their value on the used market so much better than any other phone, whereas the newest Google Pixel will have its prices slashed within only six months of its launch date. Even brand new, Apple brings that reliable and consistent experience like no other phone can, even if iOS has some massive downsides that come along with it. The locked-in ecosystem, the lack of customizability, heck, even the headphone jack removal was one of the biggest reasons not to buy an iPhone about five years ago. And the thing is, the hardware of older phones aren't even necessarily worse than the iPhone 7, at least not by a hugely significant margin. With custom ROMs and a clean, fresh Android experience on something like Lineage OS, not only can those old phones gain newer features, but feel like a completely new phone. If manufacturers actually cared enough to support their smartphones like the modern community does, I think you'd see a definite similarity in how the Android community looks back on old phones like iPhone fans do. While that community does have definitely a nostalgic element, I feel like I can write an essay on every iPhone ever released and at least keep it somewhat interesting to those who care. It's harder to do that with every single Samsung phone or every Google phone. It helps that Apple only releases one phone a year, and they are fantastic at keeping their brand image as premium. But you can't underrate the impact that their user support has when it comes to retaining and gaining new customers and building that customer loyalty. A smartphone that you bought in 2016 still not only being perfectly usable today, but still regularly receiving security updates for the foreseeable future. That's not just unheard of with other smartphones, that's unheard of in the entire tech world. It's the complete opposite of what you expect companies to do, which is not give you new updates to push you to buy a new product from them. Apple doesn't operate that way. They thrive on their customer loyalty, at least when it comes to iOS and iPhones. So if you have someone who's been using their same iPhone and updating it for the past five years, pretty good bet their next phone is going to be an iPhone.
Not to mention, gone are the days of updates constantly slowing down your phone. Of course, there are other factors like your storage getting full, the degradation of your battery if it's not replaced, or just the general issues that come with years and years of use. But my point in all this is, while the iPhone 7 in hindsight wasn't an exciting phone, at least not compared to what came after, that's perfectly okay. It was a solid iPhone upgrade for what it was in 2016, minus the headphone jack removal. At least as much courage as that took, if you throw in AirPods to the mix as well, that really makes everything look a whole lot better, along with it really starting that enduring trend of adding as many camera sensors to the back of your phone as possible. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus were stepping stones to the iPhone 10, and they will be forgotten with the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus being so similar. Apple stopped selling the iPhone 7 line with the launch of the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro in late 2019, as yet another era of Apple was underway, the one that started the year after the iPhone 7 with the half-decade-old iPhone 10. What an upgrade that was, one that was severely underrated both back then and today. But hey, that's a subject for another video. And when it comes to this one, maybe the iPhone 7 was a little bit more important than we remember, even if it certainly wasn't the most exciting. Sure, the iPhone 6s got longer in terms of support, as well as the first iPhone S, but in the grand scheme of things, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus did pretty okay. And at least they're ending their days on iOS 15, still being fast, smooth, and if anything, only better than how they were back when they released in late 2016.
Thanks, Phil. What a morning. I hope that you can get a sense from all the details that we've shared, the level of care that we put into the products. This is what we love to do. Well, I didn't think this video would end up going so long, but this is what I love doing. When I was younger, I definitely geeked out on all the specs of tech and everything, but these days, I'm honestly just more interested in the story of what lays behind the device. And if you consider yourself to be either of those people, or just found this video interesting, maybe hit that like button and consider subscribing for more content just like this. Consider this a rarity, by the way. I don't plan to remaster any other videos. It is worth mentioning, though, that in conjunction with this video, I did make an iPhone success retrospective that's linked below, along with the original version of this video for channel members. Shout out to you guys, by the way. You're the best. If you'd like to keep up, I'm on Twitter, Instagram, and even TikTok, and there is a community Discord I like to drop in here and there. So links to all this and more in the description. With all that being said, thank you so much for watching. I really do appreciate it. I put way too much time into this video, so it means a lot. I'm Josh from 91 Tech, and I will definitely see you next time. Oh.