Phil Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, speaks about the new Apple iPhone XS Max at the Steve Jobs Theater during an event to announce new Apple products Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018, in Cupertino, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
While I covered the Mobile World Congress earlier this year, Apple was notably absent. This wasn’t a mistake, as Apple holds their own keynote event to show off their next iPhone every Fall. At this year’s conference, Apple showed off the iPhone Xs, the XS Max, the Xr, and the expected Apple Watch Series 4.
The Apple Watch Series 4 was first. Compared to last year’s iteration, the Series 4 is a huge step up. The screen has almost no bezels this time around, meaning the screen is a sizable 32-35% larger (depending on which size of the watch you pick up.)
Watch faces have been improved with new dynamic watch screens. The watch can now have up to 8 widgets present on the home screen such as BPM, quick contacts, and weather.
The screen itself didn’t see any hardware improvements as they’re still giving it a 40/44mm OLED panel, but that’s considering that at the Series 4’s size, it still looks fantastic. Colors still stand out and the frame rate is still smooth.
The Health and Fitness aspect to the Series 4 has been expanded upon. The heart rate sensor now has electrodes on the back face of the watch allowing it to better track heart rate The Series 4 can notify you if your BPM is too low or too high.
The hardware has also seen an upgrade. The main processor is the improved S4 CPU, the watch now supports Bluetooth 5.0, and the motion tracking hardware (the gyroscope and accelerometer) are faster and report more often.
The pricing for the Series 4 is unsurprising. The base model with GPS enabled starts at $399, while the cellular (LTE) model starts at $499.
The first iPhone mentioned was the Xs. Better construction, new gold finish, and an IP68 rating allowing for 30 minutes of waterproofing above 2 meters of water.
The screen is a 5.8” “Super Retina” OLED display with a 2436 x 1125 resolution. It’s complimented by a whopping 6.5” iPhone Xs Max. Both have dual speaker stereo sound and have up to 512gb of storage thanks to their new 6 core adaptive CPU.
The cameras are 12MP in both Telephoto and Wide Angle, ad both have an improved sensor. Wide angle has a 1.8 aperture, while telephoto has a 2.4. The front facing cameras have been overhauled as well. Smart HDR allows for merging multiple “buffer” images and combining them. Depth of field can now be changed after taking the picture, with surprisingly good results.
Battery life is slightly better as well, and the iPhone Xs and Xs Max now support Dual Sim cards.
Following the pattern that Apple has established for pricing, this years handsets are $100 more than last year’s models. The Xs is $999, whereas the Xs Max is $1099.
They closed out the keynote with the iPhone Xr. It’s stats are noticeably lower, but the screen here is an LCD with a “Liquid Retina Display,” at 6.1”.
Another key difference is the single, 12MP, wide angle camera with a 1.8 aperture. It only goes up to 256GB on storage, however.
Because of the lesser capabilities here, it’s substantially less expensive than its Xs counterparts, starting at $750. It’s refreshing to have an affordability focused model, especially from Apple. You can pick up all the devices mentioned by September 21st.
