iPhone 7 clones prefigure what's coming next

Change is inevitable, as they always say, and change isn't always something that everyone wants. What are we talking about? Why, the changes in the iPhone 7, of course! In just a month or so, Apple is expected to finally put all rumors to rest and it is expected to be just as controversial as the iPhone 6 when it first came out. Two videos of what are unambiguously "iPhone 7 clones" give us a foretaste of what's to come. They also gauge and prepare our reactions for when the real deal lands.

Some of the changes are likely to be welcomed with open arms. For example, the much criticized antenna lines are finally getting less terrible. They're still conspicuous, of course, but no longer tasteless. There's also the belief, or wish, that the iPhone 7 will finally end the era of 16 GB iPhones, with a starting configuration of 32 GB from the get go.

Some changes are more ambiguous. An improved camera, for example, comes at a price of a bigger camera bump. This time, though, the bump seems to be molded from the same metallic body rather than feeling added on after the fact. Still, it introduces more, though only slightly, wobble compared to the iPhone 6s.

Most contentious, of course, will be the removal of the headphone jack in favor of a second row of speakers and Lightning-based wired headphones. Whether the new stereo sound of the iPhone 7 makes the removal worthwhile remains to be seen. It does have the effect of making the iPhone 7 thinner than it predecessor, but it does push away those who have their favorite pair of headphones that rely on a 3.5 mm hole. Hopefully Lightning to 3.5 mm adapters will suffice.

Granted, we can never really be sure these is the real deal. Though harder to pull off than, say, renders and edited photos, clones are not impossible to make. That said, these do mostly gather the bits we've seen or heard so far, so they might not be that far off from the truth.