BackFive new features of Apple iPhone XS
Despite being an incremental upgrade to the iPhone X, Apple iPhone XS has a lot going for it
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The successor to last year’s Apple iPhone X, the iPhone XS, was released on 12 September. Being one of the most important smartphones of 2018, the phone comes with several firsts in the smartphone industry. A look at the new features that the iPhone XS has to offer:
eSIM card:
The iPhone XS now comes with dual SIM functionality. However, it will sell in two variants—one for the Chinese market and one for the rest of the world. The iPhone XS for the Chinese markets will require two physical SIM cards, while the other variant will have one slot for a physical SIM card and one eSIM. eSIMs have been employed on the Apple Watch and they don’t require a physical SIM card to be put inside the SIM tray for your phone number to function. It requires your network provider’s support to work, though. According to a presentation slide at the Apple event, Reliance Jio, Airtel and Vodafone were the Indian network providers that will support the eSIM functionality.
Apple, however, didn’t mention whether the Indian variant will have an eSIM or physical SIM slot.
The display:
The iPhone XS builds on the edge-to-edge, notched OLED display of the iPhone X. Offered in 5.8-inch screen size, the iPhone XS sports a 2436x1125 resolution with a pixel density of 458ppi—the highest on any Apple device. The displays support Dolby Vision and HDR10 and have iOS system-wide colour management that results in better colour accuracy.
The processor:
The A12 Bionic chipset by Apple is the first chip ever in a smartphone that is based on a 7nm process. This allows it to have a more power-efficient design, but at the same time have greater performance. In fact, the A12 Bionic chip features a six-core fusion architecture—two performance cores that are 15% faster than those on the A11 and four efficiency cores that are up to 50% more efficient than the A11. The four-core GPU is also 50% faster than the outgoing chipset.
The A12 Bionic chipset is also integrated with the next-generation Neural Engine, which allows better performance especially in terms of photography and augmented reality. The chipset with its octa-core design allows up to 5 trillion operations per second that enables faster plane detection for ARKit and faster performance with apps that use machine learning.
The camera:
The dual 12MP rear cameras have been completely refreshed. The main wide-angle shooter now comes with a new sensor with a larger pixel size of 1.4 microns, as compared to 1.22 microns on the outgoing iPhone X. The aperture remains the same though, at f/1.8. The telephoto camera is now optically stabilised and uses a 12MP sensor with an f/2.4 lens.
Now, you can also adjust the depth of field after a photo has been taken. The Smart HDR feature uses the Neural engine to give better dynamic range while offering zero shutter lag, and even capturing interframes as well as long exposure shots.
The operating system:
The iPhone XS runs iOS 12, which was unveiled earlier this year at Apple’s WWDC conference. The new operating system is not only faster than the iOS 11, but also comes with support for FaceTime conference, which can now hold up to 32 participants at a time. Animojis are also taken a step further with Memojis, which allows integration of your personality and mood. The iOS 12 comes with screen time that lets you limit the amount of time you spend on a particular app and even set a bedtime for apps, which blocks app notifications after a specific time, much like Google’s Digital Wellbeing.
To be sure, the iPhone XS Max has the same specifications as that of the iPhone XS, except that it comes with a much bigger 6.3-inch display instead of 5.8-inch. The iPhone XS will retail in India from ₹ 99,900 onwards, while the iPhone XS Max is priced at ₹ 109,000.
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