All about the iPhone 7

A version of this essay was originally published at Tech.pinions, a website dedicated to informed opinions, insight and perspective on the tech industry.

I believe that Apple’s next big iPhone release is going to feature augmented-reality technology. Obviously, nobody at Apple has said anything about such a product. But the now-shipping iPhone 7 Plus, complete with dual-camera technology, is the latest hint Apple is moving in that direction. This, along with several high-profile company purchases (Metaio in 2015 and PrimeSense in 2013), points to this technology eventually appearing in products.

As soon as a new iPhone comes out, the folks at gadget insurer SquareTrade rush to see how easily it will break.

Now, with the iPhone boasting some measure of water resistance, SquareTrade had to see if they could drown the poor thing.

Apple said late Wednesday (Sept. 14) that it has sold completely out of its initial supply of its larger iPhone 7 model, with no inventory left for Friday, when the phone officially goes on sale in stores.

While the iPhone 7 Plus is completely sold out, Apple said its stores will have limited quantities of the iPhone 7 in all colors except jet black, which is also sold out.

A version of this essay was originally published at Tech.pinions, a website dedicated to informed opinions, insight and perspective on the tech industry.

Apple has a long, rich history in the fields of music and audio, and its complex and highly influential relationship with those fields was on display once again at the company’s recent iPhone 7 launch event.

Apple says it has identified and fixed a bug that caused some people to have their phones and tablets rendered unusable after updating to iOS 10.

“We experienced a brief issue with the software update process, affecting a small number of users during the first hour of availability,” an Apple representative told Recode. “The problem was quickly resolved and we apologize to those customers. Anyone who was affected should connect to iTunes to complete the update or contact AppleCare for help.”

If you haven’t already installed Apple’s iOS 10, you should probably hold off for a bit.

A number of Twitter users, including reporters at CNET and the Wall Street Journal, say that installing the update left their phones unusable.

While they won’t be able to get their hands on a new iPhone until at least Friday, Apple customers can give their current phone or tablet a new lease on life by downloading iOS 10, which is being made available later Tuesday.

Apple is billing the free update as the biggest overhaul ever of its mobile operating system. Whether or not that is the case, there are definitely some significant changes. Here are three of the biggest.

Welcome to Mossberg, a weekly commentary and reviews column on The Verge and Recode by veteran tech journalist Walt Mossberg, now an executive editor at The Verge and editor at large of Recode.

At a glance, you’d be hard-pressed to tell Apple’s new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models, which go on sale Friday, from their 2015 and 2014 counterparts. They look almost identical and are the same sizes. But once you get your hands on them, the differences are clear: Better cameras, longer battery life, water resistance, doubled memory at essentially the same prices and more.

Apple is facing a lawsuit over its iPhone 7 preorder system, with lawyers charging the company prioritized new orders over Apple Upgrade Program members seeking to trade in their existing device.

“While scores of customers signed up for the program and were ready to take advantage of the every-year upgrade with the release of the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Apple had a different plan in mind,” according to a lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Northern California. “It allowed non-iPhone Upgrade Program customers to snap up the limited inventory of the new devices while telling countless iPhone Upgrade Program customers to ‘check back later.’”

While many have noted how similar the iPhone 7 is to its predecessors, its subtle changes may actually tell us quite a bit about where Apple is headed.

The dual cameras, in particular, suggest a future that could be a step toward a broader play on virtual reality.

Included in the fine print with the iPhone 7 is the fact that consumers who buy the AT&T and T-Mobile version of the new phone are getting a version that doesn’t fully work with Sprint or Verizon.

That’s a bit of a head-scratcher, given that with the iPhone 6s, Apple had one model that worked across all U.S. carriers.

Apple shook up the iPhone buying experience last year with the addition of the iPhone Upgrade Program, which lets people level up their phones each year.

That means those who signed up a year ago (and even some who have signed up more recently) can upgrade to the iPhone 7.

Apple is known for playing things close to the vest, except when it has big sales numbers to tout.

So it comes as a bit of a surprise that the company has said it won’t release the first weekend of sales information on the iPhone 7 that was introduced Wednesday.