Today, Apple finally unveiled its highly anticipated 2018 iPhone lineup. Touted as Apple’s ‘most advanced’ roster ever, the new lot consists of an iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max. On the surface, the new phones heavily favor the iPhone X, hence the name. As per our earlier reporting, sources told us to expect ‘an S-year’ from the company.
When it comes to Apple’s top-of-the-line XS and XS Max, there is, indeed, a significant increase in performance and capability, as compared to the original iPhone X. Both the 5.8-inch XS and the 6.5-inch XS Max feature an all-new A12 Bionic chip, all-screen OLED ‘Super Retina’ display, and an upgraded dual camera system.
The brand new A12 multi-core chip has been redesigned from the ground up to be more efficient and capable than previous chips. Apple says the 7-nanometer chip is 15% faster, 50% more efficient than the A11. Going further, the A12 features a new ‘storage controller’ implementation that allows the 2018 lineup to support up to 512GB of storage. This additional capacity opens the door to new types of games and apps that weren’t possible until now, touts Apple.
What’s more, the improved eight-core Neural Engine takes the iPhone’s real-time machine learning and augmented reality capabilities to the next level. Whereas the A11 was capable of 600 billion operations per second, the A12’s Neural Engine can complete a staggering 5 trillion operations in the same time frame. According to Apple, these improvements allow features such as face detection to become even quicker than before.
Apple’s new 12-megapixel dual camera system is also an improvement over last year’s X. The company says its state-of-the-art image stabilization and 2x optical zoom will perform ‘twice as fast’ as previous sensors. And with larger pixels, the XS and XS Max can capture ultra-high quality HDR photos and 30-FPS video in low-light situations.
On the lower end, Apple’s iPhone XR offers the same cutting-edge advantages while avoiding the 4-figure price tag. The primary difference between XR and the higher-end models is the banding and display. Whereas the XS and XS Max furnish a gold, silver, or space gray stainless steel band, the XR offers an aluminum band with white, black, blue, yellow, coral and red as its color options. The other major difference is the display technology. As we’ve reported, Apple’s “budget” device will possess a 6.1-inch Liquid Retina display, as compared to OLED for the XS range.
Apple says the iPhone XS and XS Max will hit stores on September 21st, but pre-orders begin on September 14th. The XS starts at $999 for the 64GB model. The $749 XR line isn’t expected to hit stores until October.