- So here it is, the iPhone XS.
Wait, that's the X.
Here is the iPhone XS.
Now, there's gonna be a lot of that in this video.
But just go with me.
I think it's gonna make this review better.
(trendy music)
So this is a weird year for iPhones.
Usually Apples puts out a new iPhone in September,
it drops the price of the old model and it keeps selling it
for a few more years.
This year Apple didn't do any of that.
The iPhone X, which came out last year in a flurry
of hype, is gone.
Instead, there's the iPhone XS
and the new mid-range iPhone XR.
Apple really wants iPhone X to be its new brand of phones.
The letters, S or R, telling the models apart.
But let's be honest.
These are horrible names.
Especially iPhone XS Max,
which looks ridiculous no matter how you write it.
And to be perfectly honest, steals the name of my child
for which I will never forgive Apple.
Anyway, if you're shopping for a phone this year,
that means that you have two Apple phones
to look at not just one.
We don't have a XR yet but we'll review it
when it comes out in about a month.
So, the iPhone XS.
It comes in two sizes, the 5.8 inch regular size
and the new 6.8 inch XS Max. (Correction: 6.5 inch XS Max not 6.8 inch)
The phones are identical apart from the size,
the same A12 Bionic processor, same cameras,
same basic designs, same OLED display tech with
458 pixels per inch.
The Max also has a larger battery but I think
the only real reason you should get the Max
is if you really, really want a big screen.
And that's really the main question I got.
How big is the Max?
Is it too big?
Is it worth it?
And I think the answer is that it's both bigger
and smaller than you expect.
Don't get me wrong, it's big, as big as the iPhone 8 Plus
and the Pixel 2.
From the back it shares the same surfboard quality
as Apples previous plus sized phones.
But the front is a totally different story.
Because the edge to edge screen fills the entire front
of the phone, it doesn't seem as huge as the plus phones.
And when you're watching a video, it's killer,
a huge gorgeous display.
It's great.
But the Max's size also gets away from it.
With the older Plus iPhones, you never really
had to reach the very top or bottom of the phone
because of those huge bezels.
But to pull down notifications or control center
on the Max, you have to reach the very top of the device.
I have big hands and I basically can't do it.
I end up having to use two hands every time.
You can use Apple's reachability feature to pull down
the UI and then swipe.
But that's two swipes for one thing.
It just kind of makes me sad.
The Max also doesn't really do anything in software
to take advantage of that big display.
No, there's not an extra row of icons.
No, you can't watch video in Picture in Picture.
Apps have to be updated for the new display.
Instagram just look broken right now.
And apps like Slack and Gmail and Twitter
show you the exact amount of information,
just bigger.
In fact, everything is mostly just bigger.
Check out how huge the status bar is in control center.
It's huge, so yes, if you want
a really big screen get a Max.
It's a beautiful display and I've enjoyed looking
at it a lot.
Nothing about it is easier to handle
than the old plus phones.
And in some cases it's harder.
In every other way, the Max is identical to the XS,
which is almost identical to the X.
From the outside you would never know the difference
except that you can get the XS
in this interesting gold color
which has cool coppery iridescent effects in the light.
Here's where I want you to go with me.
The iPhone X introduced so much new stuff
into the phone world that reviewing the XS
gives us the chance to check in on it a year later
since so much of it is the same.
Take the display.
The XS has the same OLED display as the X
with curved corners and the notch.
It's still one of the best displays out there
with excellent color reproduction, brightness
and touch response.
Last year we were wondering how Apple would handle
burn in on this display and this year we know.
There are basically no problems with burn in
on the iPhone X display.
And I'd expect the XS to keep it up.
It's also been a full year of this physical design
and while it's beautiful, I can tell you the iPhone X
scratches way more easily than you'd expect.
Apple says the front and back glass are more durable
this year, so we'll see.
I can also tell you that getting rid of the home button
and moving the screen shot feature to wake plus volume up
means I've taken 10,000 accidental screen shots.
Apple please change this to wake plus power down
so they're not directly across from each other.
Or have the neural engine detect that it's seven am
and I've accidentally taken another photo of my lock screen.
Just do something, I'm begging you.
It's also been a full year since Apple introduced
Face ID and we know that it works pretty well
most of the time.
Face ID on the XS is ever so slightly faster
than the X.
It's noticeable side by side but it's really just
an extra beat.
It still won't work with glasses that block
IR light and it doesn't work in landscape
or upside down or anything like that.
You still have to adapt to it
instead of it adapting to you
but overall for most people, I think it's easier
to turn on Face ID and forget about it
than it Touch ID.
And that is a very good thing.
So what's really new here?
You're basically looking at two things,
the camera and the processor.
Let's start with the processor since that's pretty simple.
Last year there was the A11 Bionic
and this year there's the A12 Bionic.
Pure CPU performance-wise, the A12 isn't really
that much faster.
Apple only quotes a 15 percent performance improvement
and I didn't see a noticeable speedup over my iPhone X.
The GPU is 50 percent faster but as usual
that feels like headroom for the future
since these devices tend to stick around for so long.
Last year's A11 GPU was 30 percent faster
than the A10 and it's not like we're maxing
that out after a year.
The big change the A12 is really the vastly bigger
neural engine which accelerates machine learning.
As more and more apps rely on machine learning
that's gonna be a huge deal.
But right now, you're looking at a bunch of AR demos
and some new camera features.
Speaking of those new camera features,
the camera upgrades on the XS over the X
are significant.
But I'm just gonna come out and say it.
I don't think the iPhone XS has a better camera
than the Pixel 2.
And the Pixel 3 comes out in just a few weeks.
Don't get me wrong, it's a really good camera.
And I think people are gonna like the photos it takes.
But the Pixel 2 is the standard to beat
and the iPhone XS doesn't really do it for me.
Let's dig in.
The iPhone XS has three cameras, two in the back
and one in the front.
That front camera is the same as the iPhone X,
a seven megapixel sensor with an F2.2 lens.
Of the two rear cameras, the telephoto camera
is the same as the iPhone X.
It's an optically stabilized F2.4 lens with the same
12 megapixel sensor as last year.
But the wide angle that you'll use most often
has been seriously updated.
It's still an F1.8 lens with a 12 megapixel sensor
but each of those 12 megapixels is physically bigger now.
Which means that they can collect more light.
There's also twice as many focus pixels
which is what Apple calls its autofocus system.
The cameras and sensors work in tandem
with the new A12 processor.
Its integrated image processor and the neural engine
in a new system Apple calls Smart HDR.
The iPhone X also did HDR, but with the XS
the effect is way more obvious.
It works similarly to what Google does on a Pixel 2.
It takes a series of images at different exposures
and combines them.
Like the Pixel 2 the iPhone XS starts a rolling buffer
of four images the second you open the camera app which
allows for zero shutter lag.
The image has already been captured the shutter button.
But unlike the Pixel 2 which combines
several underexposed frames, the iPhone XS
also captures an overexposed image
for each shot in the buffer
which picks up additional details in the shadows
of your image.
Then it looks at all of the other frames in the buffer
to see if they can add additional detail
merging at least three images together to generate
the final picture that you see.
But side by side with the Pixel 2
iPhone XS still doesn't quite hold up.
You can see it pretty clearly in this photo
when you zoom in.
The iPhone aggressively smooths images.
The whole thing is just way softer.
This loss of detail is the thing
that bothered me the most about the iPhone X camera
and while the iPhone XS is better
the smoothing still disappoints me every time I see it.
Apple used to talk a big game about having
a more accurate camera than Samsung
which has done these aggressive smoothing tricks for years.
But I think those days are over.
Apple knows that most of these images will only
ever be viewed on mobile displays and it feels
like it's really starting to compete with Samsung's tricks
because it knows that no one's really looking that closely.
Loss of detail is one thing, but there are
some subjective things I prefer about the Pixel 2 as well.
The XS shoots really warm photos while the Pixel
is more true to life, if a little muddier in the reds.
Pixel 2 photos are also extremely contrasty and evocative
which I like, but some people find harsh.
I can't tell you what style of the images to prefer.
But I can tell you that these cameras are very different.
And I can also definitely tell you that you want
more detail in your images, not less.
The other big new feature on the iPhone XS camera
is the new portrait mode, which lets you adjust the blur
after you take the shot.
Samsung's phones have let you do this for a while now
but I think the iPhone looks a lot better
because the phone is doing a lot more work.
When you pick up an iPhone XS and shoot
a portrait mode photo a number of things happen.
First the phone does facial recognition
and splits apart the foreground from the background.
Then it creates a depth map of the entire scene,
particularly the subject in the foreground.
Then it progressively applies blur from foreground
to background, simulating how a real lens
on a full frame camera would smoothly transition
from front to back.
I think it's nicer than phones of the Pixel
and S9 can do.
Although it still struggles around the edges
and sometimes it makes big mistakes
like cutting these glasses off entirely.
Apple says it modeled the portrait mode blur
against prime lenses on full frame cameras
which we happen to have a lot of in our studio.
And it looks really different to be honest.
Here's a 50 mil lens on a Canon 5D Mark IV on the left
and the iPhone XS on the right.
The big cameras and real lenses produce different
shapes inside the blur because of the way the physical
aperture in the lens closes.
The iPhone doesn't really do that.
It just looks like a pretty standard blur to me.
Of course, most people don't have full frame cameras
and expensive lenses and portrait mode will do a lot
for all of those people.
But in the past year of having the iPhone X,
I've shot nearly 5000 photos.
And just 207 of them have been in portrait mode.
I don't think this new version
is gonna make me use it much more.
There's also a bunch of updates to video recording.
The front camera, which I'm using right now
has all new stabilization.
The rear cameras have all new software stabilization.
And you can record in stereo audio which is cool.
So those are the two main upgrades,
the processor and the camera.
Let's talk about some of the little stuff.
First, battery life.
I mostly tested the Max and it did great,
better than even Apple's claim of 90 minutes
more than the X.
In fact, I got a full 12 hours of battery life
out of the Max without using low power mode
and that's even under my pretty heavy daily use.
The smaller XS is rated to get 30 minutes more
than the X, which has run about 8 hours for me
this past year.
It's solid.
Second, the iPhone XS ships running iOS 12.
I didn't dive into iOS 12 too much in this video
because we already made another whole video about it.
But here's the quick version.
It's a lot like iOS 11 but a little faster.
There's Mimoji and those neat screen time limits
that get you off your phone when you've used it too much.
And needing two taps to send photos from the camera roll
and messages is a huge pain.
Please, please go back to the old way.
Apple made a big deal out of wide stereo
during the Keynote and some of you asked me
about it, so here's the deal.
The iPhone X also had stereo speakers.
But really, it was just making the earpiece speakers
super loud to serve as the other channel.
This year, both speakers are more evenly matched
so Apple can do more signal processing to achieve
a wide stereo feel.
Is it super noticeable?
Only kind of.
Is it really loud and clear?
Yes.
Apple's also improved wireless charging times.
I'm told the XS will get to a full charge
around 30 minutes faster and that it's less
sensitive to placement.
You don't need to get a new charging pad or anything.
The internals of the iPhone XS are just improved.
That's cool.
Yes, the iPhone XS has 3-D touch support
so use it while you still can, I guess.
There is gigabit LTE support which is carrier dependent.
So we weren't able to test it.
There's that top of the line 500 gigabyte model
and there's new IP68 water and dust resistance,
which is better than IP67 on the iPhone X and the iPhone XR.
So let's talk about price and whether you should buy one.
First, these are expensive phones.
The XS starts at 999 and the top of the line XS Max
with 512 gigs of storage is 1449.
That's a lot of money.
And just like last year, some of you are gonna
find that ridiculous and others of you
have already pre-ordered.
For those of you that already pre-ordered,
I think you're gonna be really happy with this phone.
It is indeed more iPhone.
It's Apple's top of the line
with everything the company can put into it.
And I think it's gonna hold up for years to come.
Apple's fallen behind the camera rates, but not by much.
And that camera is still a significant improvement
over previous iPhones.
I'm sure all of you are gonna let me know
how you feel about that in the comments.
For everyone who hasn't pre-ordered,
I think it's worth waiting to see
how the iPhone XR turns out.
It's got the same processor, the same main camera,
and a big screen for $750.
In fact, that was the biggest question I got.
Is the iPhone XS worth the premium over the XR?
And right now, I just don't know.
We're gonna have to review the phone
when it comes out next month.
But for right now I can tell you
that the iPhone XS is an update to the iPhone X.
And if you like the iPhone X,
you're gonna really like the XS.
Hey, so there's one big feature we were not able to test
which is dual sim support.
That won't arrive until a software update later this fall.
So we'll be on it when it comes out.
In the meantime, we're gonna be working on a big camera
deep dive when the Pixel 3 comes out.
So let us know what you want us to test
and we'll get right on it.