iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are smartphones designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. They were announced on September 7, 2016, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco by Apple CEO Tim Cook, and were released on September 16, 2016, succeeding the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus as the flagship devices in the iPhone series. Apple also released the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus in numerous countries worldwide throughout September and October 2016. They were succeeded as flagship devices by the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus on September 22, 2017, and the iPhone X on November 3, 2017.
The iPhone 7's overall design is similar to the iPhone 6S, but introduces new colour options (matte black and jet black ), water and dust resistance, a new capacitive, static home button, and removes the 3.5 mm headphone jack. The device's internal hardware also received upgrades, including a heterogeneous quad-core system -on-chip with improved system and graphics performance, and upgraded 12 megapixel rear-facing cameras with optical image stabilization on all models and an additional telephoto lens on the iPhone 7 Plus model to provide enhanced zoom capabilities.
Reception of the iPhone 7 was mixed. Although reviewers noted the improvements to the camera, especially the dual rear camera on the Plus model, they also stated that the iPhone 7 did not make significant changes to the display or build quality, where competing flagship smartphones surpassed the quality of the iPhone 7. Many reviews highlighted the controversial removal of the 3.5 mm headphone jack; some critics argued that the change was meant to bolster licensing of the proprietary Lightning connector and the sales of Apple 's own wireless headphone products, and questioned the effects of the change on audio quality. Apple was also mocked by critics for Phil Schiller's statement that such a drastic change required "courage".
