New CAD renderings support rumored features of Apple's 'iPhone 7' and '7 Plus'

If authentic, leaked CAD renderings of Apple's "iPhone 7" and "7 Plus" appear to support claims that the device will ditch the headphone jack, sport tweaked antenna designs, and feature a dual-camera system for the larger 5.5-inch model.

Images of the base model show an expected larger space for the rear camera, as well as relocated antenna bands, NWE noted on Wednesday. The bottom of the device has two speaker ports, suggesting once again that Apple is abandoning a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack in the interests of thinness and freeing up space.

The "Plus" model meanwhile shows an opening for a dual-lens camera. None of the published screenshots include an angle revealing whether or not the device has a Smart Connector.

The authenticity of the renderings can't be confirmed, but some images do depict internal case elements important only in manufacturing, which are unlikely to be faked. One possibility is that the renderings stem from someone at Catcher, the supplier normally tasked with building metal casings for iPhones.

Apple is expected to ship the "iPhone 7" line sometime this fall, presumably within the company's normal September window. One of the biggest changes may actually be storage capacity, as Apple is expected to finally boost the minimum to 32 gigabytes — something other phone makers have been doing for a while.

42 Comments

thewhitefalcon 4444 comments · 10 Years

About 8 years ago

The jack has nothing to do with thickness here, stop claiming that. Apple has far thinner devices that still have jacks. Internal space, yes.

regurgitatedcoprolite 287 comments · 14 Years

Yes, you're right, white falcon, the jack takes up a substantial number of cubic millimeters.

mac_128 3452 comments · 12 Years

thewhitefalcon said:

The jack has nothing to do with thickness here, stop claiming that. Apple has far thinner devices that still have jacks. Internal space, yes.

While I tend to agree with you from a semantics perspective, and only because people keep bringing up this same strawman debate about other devices being thinner, without considering the obvious:

The two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive -- in order to make the case thinner, internal components need to be spread out, and thus the presence of the jack prevents that, preventing the case from becoming thinner, even if the physical edge of the case can still accomodate the actual connector hole with room to spare. So it's both in this case -- they need more internal space to add features, but also to give existing components a thinner profile.

However, before my comment gets misconstrued, I don't believe the goal is to make the phone thinner. I believe the goal is to add more features in the same space, while making the phone as small and light as possible. The phone may or may not get any thinner, but it's unlikely to get any thicker, and therein lies the problem with the headphone jack as it presently exists and takes up space. And I further believe Apple is not alone here. Android devices are just as thin as Apple's, and in order to maintain feature parity, it's likely that they must resort to the same tactic of removing all redundant features in order to remain competitive with Apple.

wozwoz 263 comments · 13 Years

Watch the iPhone 7 fail dismally - followed by an iPhone 7S or 8 that returns the 3.5mm headphone jack.

flaneur 4525 comments · 14 Years

However you interpret it, the headphone jack is a comical wasre of space for the sake of four lousy contacts, which could be handled just as well by the much smaller lightning jack, with 13 contacts to spare, two of which are power.

Its time has passed. Manufacturing of smaller contacts obsolesced it years ago. No self-respecting engineer could tolerate hanging on to it much longer.