that Apple was very likely launching three iPhones this year and so they have.
Apple iPhone XS.
year, we have two premium iPhones — the iPhone Xs and the iPhone Xs Max, and a
more affordable iPhone called the iPhone Xr. The pricing, however, is what
might make tears roll down your face.
iPhone Xs starts at Rs 99,900, the larger iPhone Xs Max begins at Rs 1,09,900
and the supposedly more affordable iPhone Xr starts at Rs 76,900.
The iPhone Xs and the Xs Max will start shipping on 21 September, while
preorders begin as soon as 14 September. The iPhone Xr, meanwhile, begins
shipping a little later on 26 October.
Apple
iPhone Xs and Xs Max
Other
than their respective dimensions, the two premium iPhones are basically
identical in terms of feature, differing only in display size and battery
capacity.
Dual
SIM:
Perhaps the biggest update to the iPhones, at least as far as we Indians are
concerned, is that the phones all support Dual SIM dual Standby. Finally.
exact implementation of the feature is unknown, but from what Apple said on
stage, it seems that the phones will use a regular SIM alongside and eSIM for
delivering this functionality. Of course, your carrier will have to support
eSIM for this to work. Thankfully, Airtel, Vodafone and Jio appear to be
supporting the feature as their names were displayed on stage.
Jio and Vodafone already support eSIM on the Apple Watch Series 3 LTE, so it’s
expected that they will support the new iPhones.
Chinese variant of the iPhones will support two physical SIMs.
Build
and design:
The phones are identical to the iPhone X in this department. They both feature
a stainless steel frame, glass back and support for wireless charging.
Display:
The smaller of the two premium iPhones, the iPhone Xs features a 5.8-inch Super
Retina display (2688×1242) while the larger one has a 6.5-inch display
(2436×1125). Despite the size of the screens, the Xs Max is the same size as
the 5.5-inch iPhone. The 5.8-inch unit is, of course, identical in size to the
iPhone X.
displays are obviously OLED and feature a pixel density of 458 PPI.
Interestingly, the displays support Dolby Vision and HDR10, which means that we
might see support for YouTube HDR.
other features remain the same. You get 3D Touch, wide gamut colour, True Tone
support, tap-to-wake, etc.
A12
Bionic:
The biggest update to the phones is the new A12 Bionic chip. It’s the world’s
first 7 nm chip and is packing in a whopping 6.9 billion transistors and a
total of 18 cores. Six cores are CPU cores, 4 are GPU cores and 8 are dedicated
to the Neural Engine for AI tasks.
the 6 CPU cores, 2 are high-performance cores that are apparently 15 percent
faster than the previous generation core. The 4 high-efficiency cores are
claimed to be 50 percent more efficient. The biggest bump comes in the GPU
department, which is claimed to be up to 50 percent faster. The GPU is Apple’s
in-house design.
Neural Engine (NE) is the most exciting bit of the new design, though its true
power will be seen only later when more apps are out. According to Apple, the
new chip is about 10 times faster than the A11 Bionic on the previous phones.
demos shown by Apple, the Neural Engine was used by developers to do things
like track objects, vastly improve camera performance. The Neural Engine is
also the reason we have a 512 GB storage option.
also says that the Neural Engine increases the performance of the Face ID
sensor.
Cameras:
phones feature 12 MP f/1.8 + 12 MP f/2.4 dual camera (wide+tele) cameras, but
more importantly, they feature a lot of AI enhancements that finally improve
the bokeh capabilities of the phones.
cameras can still record video at 4K 60 fps and both cameras feature OIS
(optical image stabilisation).
new update is a feature called ‘Depth-Control’, which lets you adjust the
background blur using a virtual aperture slider. This slider can simulate
apertures ranging from f/1.4 to f/16. AI updates also mean that features
like Portrait Lighting are improved
also a new Smart HDR mode that is said to dramatically improve low-light
performance as well that of images in tough lighting conditions. The camera can
recognise faces, determine the best lighting option based on a face and make
depth maps based on the captured data.
front camera remains the same at 7 MP f/2.2, but now features stabilisation. It
can also record 1080p video. Since the Face ID sensor is on all cameras,
Portrait Selfies are now supported.
audio recording is supported for video.
Battery
Life:
Apple says that these phones will last about 1.5 hours longer than the phones
they replace.
Storage
and colour variants:
The
phones will be available in 64/256/512 GB storage options. These will be
available in the regular silver and space grey colours as well as in a
refreshed gold variant as well.
iPhone
XR
The
cheapest iPhone of the bunch cuts back on the hardware but retains all the
software features of the expensive iPhones. The display is now a 6.1-inch LCD
unit with a resolution of 1792×828. This is surprisingly low but translates to
326 PPI, which is acceptable.
is calling this a “liquid retina” display and say it’s the largest
LCD ever on an iPhone. The phone is smaller than an iPhone 8 Plus.
frame on this phone is made from aluminium rather than steel and the back is
made from glass to support wireless charging.
The phone also takes a hit in the camera department with Apple opting for a single lens unit on the rear. Thankfully, while the rear camera lacks a 12 MP tele lens, its 12 MP f/1.8 wide-angle camera is identical to the ones on the Xs and Xs Max. Better yet, Portrait Lighting and adaptive bokeh modes are still supported, just as they are on the single lens Pixel 2 smartphone.
The A12 Bionic chip is present here as well, but storage options are limited to 64/128/256 GB models.
The colour options are also far more interesting and include White, Black, Blue, Yellow, Coral and even a (PRODUCT) RED edition.
An area of concern is the contents of the box your iPhone will come in. Judging by Apple’s website, it seems that Apple has dropped the Lightning to 3.5 mm adapter, which is essential for connecting any sort of headphone