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Apple iPhone Xs series lands in SA on 28th September

It’s Apple release time and this evening the trillion dollar firm showed off a new iPhone, of course.

Apple CEO Tim Cook spent some time talking about the iPhone X and how it changed the industry while becoming the number one smartphone in the world.

The firm says that the phone garnered a 98 percent customer satisfaction.

But it’s time for a revamp and the iPhone Xs (10S) is that revamp.

Putting another notch in the belt

The notch makes a return and the handset boasts IP68 certification for waterproofing at up to 2m for 30 minutes. Apple says it tested the handset in a variety of liquids including beer.

Super Retina OLED display 5.8 inches 2.7 million pixels 458ppi. Smaller package than the 8 Plus but with a display as big as that phone.

That display boast a 60 percent greater dynamic range compared to the iPhone X.

As we suspected the iPhone Xs will come in two sizes 5.8inch and a 6.5inch handset Apple is call the iPhone Xs Max or as we will henceforth refer to it, the SMAX.

The iPhone Xs Max or SMAX.

FaceID is now powered by multiple neural networks. The firm says that it works faster than ever before asnd that it is the most secure facial authentication ever in a smartphone.

The iPhone Xs series features the all new chip A12 Bionic. The big news however is that Apple now has the first seven nanometer chip, beating Huawei to the punch by a hair.

Inside that 7nm system on chip is 18 cores. Six are dedicated to the CPU, four to the GPU and eight driving the Neural Engine. That neural engine is able to manage the load on the CPU in real time meaning apps will launch faster and perform faster as well.

The all new chip means that Apple can now squeeze up to 512GB of internal storage into the handset.

The A12 Bionic chip overview.

Gaming gets bigger

But enough of that, the iPhone Xs is great for gaming and Bethesda’s Todd Howard showed off Elder Scrolls Blades on stage during the vent.

It looked rather amazing, dare we say as good as a console.

The game launches later this year.

After that we got to see some new AR gaming thanks to Directive Gaming’s AR Kit that makes full use of all that juicy processing power.

The firm says it’s just scratching the surface of what is possible with the A12 Bionic and gaming.

Galaga, in AR!

Real-time sports improvement

Then, Core ML is being used to create apps such as Homecourt which detects a basketball court and shows you where you missed and hit shots.

The tech tracks six metrics in real time and can be used to improve your game.

No sensors, just the iPhone.

A better camera

The rear camera is a dual 12MP affair with both a wide and telephoto lens with a 7MP snapper up front.

The image signal processor (ISP) now works with the neural engine in the A12 Bionic. This allows the chip to to understand the scene and capture better photos. Apple says the ISP and neural engine together can process 1 trillion operations per photo.

Smart HDR is a new feature that takes the idea of HDR a bit further. The gist of this feature is that you can capture photos with greater clarity and depth even while the subject is moving thanks to a four frame buffer.

The coolest thing however, is the ability to adjust depth of field in a photo after you’ve taken it.

The rear camera.

Marginal battery upgrades

The iPhone Xs will give you a marginal 30 minutes of extra battery life while the SMAX will give you one extra hour. Not much but it’s an improvement.

And finally the handset will, as expect allow you to have two different SIMs. One of the SIMs is an eSIM which we saw in the Apple Watch Series 3.

But wait, there’s more

Just before closing off Apple unveiled the iPhone Xr.

Made from aluminum and glass, they carry a IP67 certification.

It sports an LCD display but Apple says it’s very advanced and of course it’s calling it something special – Liquid Retina.

The display measures in at 6.1inches and it cuts a few corners in terms of features compared to the Xs and SMAX but you still get FaceID and the A12 Bionic chip.

It seems Apple cut corners where it could while keeping the features customers want and that matter.

The camera is a single 12MP affair and snaps look rather good from what we saw on stage. Storage

Overview of the iPhone Xr.

The new iPhone Xs series and Xr launch on. As for pricing the iPhone Xs will start $999, the iPhone Xs Max will cost $1 099. Pre-orders open this Friday. The handsets will be in South Africa from 28th September.

As soon as we have local pricing we’ll update you.

The iPhone Xr starts at $749 pre-orders open on 19th October and it ships on 26th October.

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