Apple has officially unveiled its two new flagship handsets, the iPhone Xs and the iPhone Xs Max, during the “Gather Round” media event on Wednesday.
The new handsets arrive with 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch OLED displays, improved water resistance, stronger glass displays, and a new gold color option.
The iPhone Xs sports the same size 5.8-inch 2436-by-1125-pixel resolution display as its predecessor. The iPhone Xs Max features Apple’s largest-screen device to date, complete with a resolution of 2688 x 1242 measuring 6.5-inch diagonally. Both devices have a pixel density of 458 ppi.
The iPhone Xs features faster Face ID recognition due to faster algorithms and a faster secure enclave alongside improved speakers with wider stereo sound.
Both the iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max feature a 64-bit A12 Bionic processor alongside an M12 Motion coprocessor.
The A12 Bionic has a 4-core GPU and a 6-core CPU with a GPU is up to 50 percent faster than the A11. The CPU has two performance cores that are 15 percent faster and four efficiency cores.
The A12 Bionic processor features a new Neural Engine, eight cores, and is capable of up to five trillion neural operations a second. Apple says that this new neural engine enables real-time machine learning. By adding neural engine support to Core ML, Core ML will up to 9 times faster, while using one tenth the power.
The iPhone’s water resistance has been improved to an IP68 rating, as opposed to its prior IP67 rating, and can stay submerged at 1.5 meters (4.92 feet) for 30 minutes. IP67 rating limits submersions to 1 meter (3.28 feet) for the same duration.
Where cameras are concerned, both handsets feature a dual camera setup alongside an improved True Tone flash. The units feature a 12MP wide camera with wider, deeper pixels, a new sensor and an upgraded 12MP tele lens, both with image stabilization.
Apple has upgraded the Image Signal Processor to work with the neural engine to add additional features such as facial landmarking and segmentation. The cameras work with new Smart HDR that is enabled by the fast A12 Bionic processor.
Portrait Mode and Portrait Lighting have been improved and offer better background bokeh, with users being able to adjust the aperture after a photo has been taken.
Video appears to have been improved as well, and stereo sound can be recorded and played back on the newly upgraded speakers. Low light performance has also been improved, with much less noise.
A new battery system allows for 30 minutes of additional usage time over the iPhone X. The iPhone Xs Max features the largest battery yet, offering an hour and a half extra usage time over the X.
The iPhone Xs supports dual SIM and each phone will have a physical sim card and an eSim card, except China which will have two physical sim cards.
The iPhone Xs will retail for $999 for the 64GB model, with a 256GB model retailing for $1,149 and the new 512GB option available for $1,349. The iPhone Xs Max will sell for $1,099 for the 64GB model, with the 256GB model retailing for $1,249, and 512GB going for $1,449.
Apple notes that pre-orders start on September 14, with the first wave of devices scheduled to arrive on September 21.
Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.