iPhone 7 With Faster CPU, Improved Camera Works Fine for Business

Once I got used to the buzz instead of a click, everything worked fine, although the phone’s response to the home button seemed a little slower than on the iPhone 6S.

Outside of the home button, the iPhone 7 was clearly much faster with its A10 Fusion system on a chip with dual 2.34 GHz quad core processors than the iPhone 6s. Animations were very smooth and tasks that on older phones that churned away for many seconds ran much faster.

A good example you’re likely to notice took occurred when I restored the new iPhone from an encrypted backup on my computer. This time when I started the process, it was done in about eight minutes, which is better than twice as fast as when I performed the same task a year ago with the iPhone 6S.

Read More: Security features show iOS 10 isn’t just for show

iPhone changes

The other big change with the iPhone 7 is the much-debated elimination of the headphone jack. As predicted, Apple includes a short (about 3 inches) Lightning to 3.5mm phone jack adapter cable. I tried it with a pair of Bose QuiteComfort 15 noise cancelling headphones, and it sounded fine.

Perhaps more important, the Square mag stripe reader used by a large number of small businesses that previously plugged into the headphone jack will work fine with the adapter, according to the Square mobile payment company.

Beyond those most obvious new features, the camera is better with the front camera deliver higher resolution than was available on the 6s. However, when I took a selfie, there was nothing the iPhone could do to improve how I looked in the subsequent photo. The camera has optical stabilization, which worked well.

Business photography

For routine business photography, such as photos taken for insurance claims or for recording of work done, the optical stabilization should reduce the number of retakes required for a good photo and also reduce the time required to generate photos for work assignments.

For more specialized work, the capabilities of the new iPhone could be important. For example, some television news reporting is already being done with iPhones instead of broadcast television cameras.

While an iPhone can never replace the optical quality of a commercial broadcast television camera, it can do for spot news reporting, especially given the new greater aperture of f/1.8, which with optical stabilization will allow the smartphone to produce better photos and videos under difficult conditions.

Whether those new features coupled with a faster processor and greater memory will bring enough value to your company to make it a worthwhile upgrade depends on what you need it for.

If all you need is a good smartphone with good app support, then you probably don’t need to move beyond the iPhone 6s. But some features such as its water resistance and improved features meet your needs, then it’s a nice upgrade without much of a downside.

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Originally published on eWeek