Those who can remember last year would keep in mind that there were a number of avenues for preordering, including Apple's online store. The orders, though, were not available for the users for almost one hour after the orders began to be taken. Two years before, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were snatched up, likewise. For two hours, the eager beavers could not go to the online stores.
The iPhone 7 and the 7 Plus were announced at an event Wednesday in San Francisco. The iPhone 7 started at $649, and the 7 Plus began at $769. Its second generation of Apple Watch, beginning at $369, showed off $159 wireless headphones called AirPods.
There are quite a number of complaints about the price. Tweeted Bobby Deol: "iPhone 7 for $800: when you fall down the stairs with the phone in your pocket and hear a crack you'll be thinking, 'God please let it be my leg'."
The latest models do not look too different from last year's. They have both ditched the headphone jack and taken to wireless headphones and those that connect through the Lightning charging port. They have appeared in two new black versions, which include a shiny new "jet black" model. They have "better processors, water resistance and new home buttons" reacting to varying pressure levels, apart from larger amounts of storage. The 7 Plus model has a couple of cameras giving users better 'zoom' capabilities.
Twitter user David Nuzzy Nussbaum said: "I'm already bored with the iPhone 7. When's the iPhone 8 come out?"
However, Julie Ask, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, says: "Consumers underestimate the engineering feats that the iPhone 7 brings, like the audio, camera, processing power, etc, in such a small package."
Everyone knows that the iPhone is Apple's most popular invention, along with being the moneymaker too. More than two-thirds of Apple's sales are from the iPhone. In July, Apple confirmed that it sold its billionth iPhone since Steve Jobs introduced it to the world in 2007.
However, market watch reports that people are beginning to lose the original excitement and eagerness for the iPhone. While the smartwatch market has lagged behind, the Apple Watch is in demand but faces a lot more competing devices.
Apple on Thursday said it won't be disclosing opening weekend sales figures for the iPhone. It typically touts the phone to the millions of users who have purchased the device. While a record 13 million iPhone buyers last year just picked up the device in the first three days, Apple said that for the newest device, "initial sales will be governed by supply, not demand, and we have decided that it is no longer a representative metric for our investors and customers."
