Are iPhone 6 and 7 cases compatible?

Maybe you noticed that, unlike previous non-"S"-year iPhone updates, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus look a lot like their predecessors. In fact, a few small details aside (such as the speaker grille and antenna design), they're almost identical.

The technical specifications on Apple's website for the iPhone 6S and the iPhone 7 (including all the Plus models), suggest they have they exact same dimensions. The buttons are all in the same place, and despite the lack of a 3.5mm jack for analog headphones, your old case should, theoretically, fit the new model. The location of the headphone jack has been replaced with a speaker grille which shouldn't interfere the fit of a case.

However, there is one major design difference that matters: the camera.

The lens protrusion on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6S is small and juts out from the casing, almost as if it's glued on. With the iPhone 7, the camera optics are much larger and the casing slightly curves up to the rim of the camera housing. With the iPhone 7 Plus you have a dual-camera layout, which is not just taller than the old optics, it's several times wider, as well.

Apple iPhone 7 has everything but the headphone jack (pictures)

The official Apple cases for the iPhone 6S look similar to those for the iPhone 7, but they will not fit properly. This means if you spent $99 on the Smart Battery Case, you'll have to buy a new one for the latest iPhone.

This change will affect other accessories as well, such as the Olloclip.

Fortunately, everything else should work just fine, including your wired headphones via an included Lightning adapter.

The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus have the exact same dimensions as the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, down to the tenth of a millimeter according to Apple. So you won’t need a new case if you’re upgrading, right? Wrong.

iPhone 6s cases probably won’t fit the iPhone 7 because of the camera bulge on the back of the phone. The camera lens on the iPhone 7 is significantly bigger, and also located a little closer to the edge of the phone. The TrueTone flash on the iPhone 7 is bigger too.

Update: A sharp reader on Twitter asked if a bumper would fit, since the ports are all unchanged except the missing headphone jack. It’s quite possible! A bumper is the most likely kind of case to fit, as long as it didn’t curve around the phone enough to interfere with the camera bump.

The cameras on the new phones take up more room (iPhone 7 at left, iPhone 7 Plus on the right). Compare these to the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus pictured below. 

iPhone 6s (left) and 6s Plus (right). 

Now, there’s a chance, if you have an iPhone 6s case with a super huge cutout for the camera lens, it could still work. Hopefully that magical case would also have a pretty open bottom as well, to avoid blocking the iPhone 7’s speaker. But if the camera opening isn’t the right size, the case won’t fit at all, and if the bottom of a case only has a small hole where the headphone jack used to be, that could partially cover the larger speaker grille on the bottom of the iPhone 7.

Not only the camera lens is larger, but the flash too. 

iPhone 7 Plus buyers almost definitely won’t be able to use cases designed for the iPhone 6s Plus, since the 7 Plus has a two-camera setup that takes up a lot more space on the back of the phone. As seen in the images here, the iPhone 7 Plus’s cameras, microphone, and flash extend from the edge of the case almost to the center.

Apple offers cases for the new iPhone 7 models, including the $99 Smart Battery Case and $45 Leather Case, and and of course dozens of case makers are rushing out iPhone 7 specific designs as we speak. We’ll round up the early contenders as soon as we get our iPhone 7 hardware in-house, and let you know what our favorites are.

Author: Susie Ochs, Contributor

Susie has been covering Apple since 2006, and when she isn't glued to her MacBook Air and iPhone, you can find her building sand castles at the beach or snowboarding in the mountains.