Wesley's Tool-Box

It is pretty safe to assume that the latest iPhone has the best camera in general. The tradition continues with iPhone 7, which allows me to take impressive photos like the one you see here. But to truly appreciate the improvements, a good round of comparison is in order.

First, let's look at the basic specifications as reported by the EXIF data. For the rear camera, we have these values:

And for the front camera:
Last year's rear camera was mostly about the increased pixel count; with the quality improvement taking a back seat. Front camera did jump out of the 1.2-megapixel hole, which was overdue. This year, enhancing the image quality is back in focus. The sensor can now capture on a much wider colour space (DCI-P3, a.k.a. Display-P3, instead of the traditional sRGB), and the wider aperture on the new rear lens (f/1.8, up from f/2.2) should allow for lower noise and brighter night shots. Meanwhile, the front camera can now take 7-megapixel photos.

Smartphone software and hardware become more sophisticated by the year. So a new device is expected to be faster than its predecessor. But it's a balancing act of both raw performance and power consumption. The A10 Fusion chip in the iPhone 7 series has four cores - two high-performance cores and two power-efficient cores to do just that. It's supposed to be the fastest A-series chip yet while not impacting battery life. So how does it really do on performance? Apple claims up to 2 times faster for CPU and 3 times faster for GPU compared to 2 generations ago (iPhone 6 series). Let's see if that's true.


GeekBench 4 Result Details: 4S | 5 | 5S | 6+ | 6S+ | 7

GeekBench has been a standared in benchmarking CPU performance across many platforms. The 4.0.1 version that came out recently runs on iOS 9 or later, so I can only compare up to iPhone 4S. Still, you can see that iPhone 7 does indeed perform well. It is about 2.1 to 2.2 times faster than iPhone 6 Plus, and 35 to 40 percent faster than iPhone 6S Plus. We no longer have 2x performance jump like back in iPhone 5 - 5S transition, but things are in line with Apple's claim here.

Given that iPhone's predecessor is iPod the digital music player, the listening experience is still a big part of the device for many people. So the removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack was bound to be controversial, despite the fact that Apple has provided many options to mitigate the inconvenience.


Primarily, the EarPod earphones bundled with iPhone 7 use Lightning connector, giving you at least one native solution. Along with that is a Lightning to 3.5mm headphone jack adapter that you can use with any other regular earphones and headphones. Because Lightning port is fully digital, the both the adapter and the earphones have DAC modules inside to provide analog audio output. Unless you must charge the phone at the same time, you're not worse off than before as long as the adapter works as intended.

On a side note, providing both a DAC-equipped earphone and an adapter resulted in sacrificing the plastic case for the earphones, likely because of costs. The case is now simply a throwaway paper packaging.

My iPhone collection is constantly growing. When you lay them down like this with their boxes, it provides me with a nice view of how the technology is evolving. As with all things, though, old devices simply ceases to be supported by the manufacturer. The three iPhones at the top no longer receive any major iOS version updates and are stuck in their time. The new member of this is the iPhone 4S, topping out at iOS 9.3.5. I expect iPhone 5 to join this group next year because, along with iPhone 5C, it is the last in the line of 32-bit iPhones and iOS 10 visually warns about an app that's not 64-bit.

iOS updates or not, all my devices are kept in good working condition. So I brought them out for another annual round of tests. For this year's tests, devices from iPhone 5 to 7 had iOS 10.0.1. 4S, 4, and 3GS had 9.3.5, 7.1.2, and 6.1.6, respectively. Last year, devices from iPhone 4S to 6S Plus had 9.1. Let's take a look at the boot times.


Unless it's an old device that's feeling the weight of a new OS, newer devices tend to have a quicker boot time. Strangely though, iPhone 7 does not boot up as fast as its predecessor, and this was repeatedly observed. Perhaps this is due to the tested device having a large, 256GB storage and the system taking its time to test its integrity.

A few months ago, I noticed that the first generation FLIR One thermal imaging module for iPhone 5 & 5S went on a bargain sale online for about US$110. Since the newer version and the competing products were two to three times more expensive I thought it would be a great chance to own a thermal imaging camera of my own and ordered one. Good thing I did, because as of this writing the price went back up so high that you'd be better off getting the newer version.

Mine arrived after a couple of weeks and I was already impressed with the nifty packaging. The product itself was also well-built and tightly integrated with my iPhone 5 once I put it into the provided case. Functionally, it works pretty much as advertised. You can see the thermal images of your environment through the phone's screen, with objects' contours enhanced using the images from a regular camera next to the thermal one. This technique, called MSX, is a way of mitigating a relatively low pixel count of the sensor (80 x 60 = 4,800). You have to recalibrate the sensor from time to time using a sliding switch next to it, which is slightly inconvenient at times.


Other device specifications limit the use of this module mostly to indoor use. The maximum range is about 30m (100 feet) and can only detect between 0°C to 100°C (32°F - 212°F). It does work quite well if you work within these limits, though. I can see where the heat leaks in my house and whether the floor heating is working properly, to give some examples.

To me, the fact that it works only with iPhone 5 or 5S out of the box was its biggest disadvantage because the larger iPhone 6 and 6 Plus series came out just two months after its official availability. FLIR did address this problem by releasing a second generation model a year later that solved the form factor problem (just plugs into the bottom of a phone) along with an upgraded pixel count (160 x 120 = 19,200) and range (-20°C to 120°C). It also does auto-calibration, boosting its convenience. But what about for those who already own one and upgraded to the newer iPhones?

You could use it on a spare iPhone, like I initially did, or modify it. There are aftermarket phone cases to fit an iPhone 6(S) or 6(S) Plus. But these require you to cut off the curved area to the side of the connector on the module so that they won't interfere with the wider width of these phones. Otherwise, the Lightning connector wouldn't go all the way in. But I did not like to mutilate it like this and decided to find another way.