Just over a week ago I drew a Friday 8am reservation for the new iPhone and upgraded as I do for the camera and increased storage alone. The new Apple reservation process was easy as I was in and out with the new phone in 5 minutes and had the first Apple 7 Plus Black matte for the Portland store I was at.  After having used the phone for just over a week I have a few personal observations.

The positives for me:

• The iPhone 7 Plus is a really nice phone and much faster than my previous iPhone 6S Plus. Not sure it is sufficient reason if you have a iPhone 6S Plus to upgrade for the speed alone, but if you have an iPhone 6 or older it is certainly worth the upgrade.
• Having the256Gb storage is a really nice option to have with all the data we store in high resolution 4k video and photos including NEF RAW now.
• The camera is phenomenal and worth the upgrade to me. The iPhone 7 Plus has the dual cameras which act as a wide angle and a telephoto. The camera is also more sensitive in low light.
• Here are some of the photos I have taken in the past week.
  
  
  
• iOS 10 is much better than the prior release of the operating system.

The negatives for me:

• The headphone jack has been removed.  I understand they needed the space for other electronics in the cramped design envelope and to increase waterproofing bit the removal is a pain. The most painful part of the removed headphone jack was experienced by me this weekend when traveling and was running low on power but I could not charge and listen to my headphones at the same time. While I can deal with using the provided adapter for all my headphones it is a pain and I can forget the adapter at times. I don’t really like the included lightning compatible Apple earbuds. The removal of this old hardware plug can be frustrating but the iPhone 7 is still a great device overall.
• It would have been nice to have more changes to the design although I suspect they are waiting to make big changes in next years 10th year anniversary  edition of the iPhone.
• Still no iMessages or more openness for the other mobile platforms.

Bottom line personal opinion:

This is a great phone and while I have used many mobile platforms over the years including Blackberry, Android, and WinCE, the iPhone is still my choice until the next big thing comes along. If you re an iPhone user with a 6S you might wait for next year but if you have a iPhone 6 or older then the 7 offers enough of an improvement to upgrade.