Apple Special Event (Sept 12 2018)

The colors for the XR sure do seem interesting, but I think I'm leaning on going to the XS since I've gotten so used to the finish of my X. I've debated going with the bigger screen (Max), but I think I'd have to play with it in person to really make that decision. As it stands, I'm 99% sure I'm pre-ordering the XS this Friday.

Looks like no AirPods 2 or AirPower Mat (or whatever it was going to be called).
 
I have an iPhone X and after this presentation I have no motivation to buy an XS or XS Max. I'll wait till next year.
 
The XR looks like a really nice mid-range compromise. My wife and I are both on very old phones, so we'll probably grab the XR next time someone does a BOGO offer.
 
The XR looks like a really nice mid-range compromise. My wife and I are both on very old phones, so we'll probably grab the XR next time someone does a BOGO offer.
It is ridiculously priced and the display has sub fullhd resolution. Ripoff.
 
Really wish they had a new SE.

That's probably (hopefully) coming around March, I figure. I'm guessing Apple wants to do the all-screen + Face ID combo there as well, although it'll be curious as to whether or not they can do that on something so small. The notch is currently wide enough that it'd take up nearly the entire top width! Either it'll stick to Touch ID, or it's going to require some UI tweaking to cram status data into tiny spaces.
 
Don't see how is that a midrange with top specs.

Well we're certainly fucked on phone prices if we're going to call any $750+ phone mid-range as well. But I would still expect a 400+ PPI display on a phone of that price. It's garbage that this will be Apple's cheapest current gen phone too.
 
It is ridiculously priced and the display has sub fullhd resolution. Ripoff.

I'll grant it's a lower resolution screen, but I don't view any media on my phone so I don't really care if it's a lower resolution.

I'm not sure where you're coming from on the price. Phones in general cost too much nowadays, but that's nothing specific to the XR.
 
I'm not going to lie.. I'm pretty disappointed. Even as someone who likes Apple enough to make a thread about this event. They didn't really introduce anything new or compelling. I had a small list of things that I thought would fit in an "s" upgrade and not a single one made the list.

  • 120hz display - This is already on the iPad pro. I thought it would be a shoe in for the S model phones. Hell, even if it was just on the Max it would be nice.
  • Apple pencil support - I don't imagine this would be too hard to do with the ipad now supporting it.
  • Fast charging out of the box - I'm not buying an additional adapter to get this to work. Its pretty standard now to include this stuff in the box.
None of this stuff is new tech for Apple. Its ALL included in other products of theirs. Including them in the new lineup would have been simple and given people a clear reason to upgrade or not. This seems like a tiny hardware upgrade and then them showing off stuff thats coming in IOS 12.
 
I'm not going to lie.. I'm pretty disappointed. Even as someone who likes Apple enough to make a thread about this event. They didn't really introduce anything new or compelling. I had a small list of things that I thought would fit in an "s" upgrade and not a single one made the list.

  • 120hz display - This is already on the iPad pro. I thought it would be a shoe in for the S model phones. Hell, even if it was just on the Max it would be nice.
  • Apple pencil support - I don't imagine this would be too hard to do with the ipad now supporting it.
  • Fast charging out of the box - I'm not buying an additional adapter to get this to work. Its pretty standard now to include this stuff in the box.
None of this stuff is new tech for Apple. Its ALL included in other products of theirs. Including them in the new lineup would have been simple and given people a clear reason to upgrade or not. This seems like a tiny hardware upgrade and then them showing off stuff thats coming in IOS 12.

Hard to not be disappointed in phone launches in general these days (eg: Note 9). To your points though, 120Hz would make the screen take at least twice as much battery (although if they spent the time to develop VFR for everything then that would be great, so it wouldn't render frames when something static is on the screen and would move to 120Hz as soon as there is any motion). Apple pencil was internally tested specifically for the Max version of the phone, but was deemed by Apple to be ungainly. Faster charger, I have no real info about in terms of from Apple, but likely they just didn't want to spend the money and would rather make the buck in accessories.
I'm not making excuses for them, but it is what it is. I don't really have expectations in general for any hardware company. I certainly don't expect them to blow my mind. We get the updates as they come and then we vote with our wallet. Same as per usual. I definitely will not be picking up any new phone at launch. Maybe in 2 years used.
 
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Reiterating that if they had announced an iPhone SE2 I think I would've already been sold. My wife could use a replacement for the 6S that's getting flakey.
 
I'm not going to lie.. I'm pretty disappointed. Even as someone who likes Apple enough to make a thread about this event. They didn't really introduce anything new or compelling. I had a small list of things that I thought would fit in an "s" upgrade and not a single one made the list.

  • 120hz display - This is already on the iPad pro. I thought it would be a shoe in for the S model phones. Hell, even if it was just on the Max it would be nice.
  • Apple pencil support - I don't imagine this would be too hard to do with the ipad now supporting it.
  • Fast charging out of the box - I'm not buying an additional adapter to get this to work. Its pretty standard now to include this stuff in the box.
None of this stuff is new tech for Apple. Its ALL included in other products of theirs. Including them in the new lineup would have been simple and given people a clear reason to upgrade or not. This seems like a tiny hardware upgrade and then them showing off stuff thats coming in IOS 12.

I don't think OLED is currently capable of doing 120Hz at the moment, especially with that fucking awful PWM.

Really wish they keep iPhone XS with LCD Panel. The navigation burn in issue really push me off.
 
I don't think OLED is currently capable of doing 120Hz at the moment, especially with that fucking awful PWM.

Really wish they keep iPhone XS with LCD Panel. The navigation burn in issue really push me off.

I honestly don't think burn in is really a big issue anymore. I've had several OLED phones, and not a single one ever experienced burn in. That includes the iPhone X I've been using for the past year. I use navigation pretty regularly, and I watch a lot of Twitch streams on the phone (many streamers have a static overlay on their stream), too.
 
I honestly don't think burn in is really a big issue anymore. I've had several OLED phones, and not a single one ever experienced burn in. That includes the iPhone X I've been using for the past year. I use navigation pretty regularly, and I watch a lot of Twitch streams on the phone (many streamers have a static overlay on their stream), too.

Google iPhone X burn in. Plenty of people have burn in issue, especially keyboard and the little white bar.

All OLED will burn in at one point, it just depends on how often you use your phone. The more often the faster.

Hence why Apple invest and research into MicroLED, and panel manufacture starting to walk away from it as well.

There is just no way out of it.
 
All OLED WILL burn in, but for some people it will take many, many years, and others it takes a few months. If you leave your screen on 100% brightness, and set the screen time-out to 10 minutes or never? Yeah, you're gonna be fucked. Set it to auto-brightness and a 1-2 minute screen shut off? You're fine.

I've used many, MANY OLED screens back in the day, from the regular pentile AMOLEDs on the Samsung (Samsung Moment), to when they actually made SAMOLED, to the newer OLEDs. I think only ONCE (on the shitty ass Moment) did I have burn-in.
 
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I have an iPhone X 256gb & before that I had the 7 & 8 (actually went SE, 7 32gb, 8 64gb, then 7 256gb because I got it on sale for less then I owed on my 8 & then I won the X) and of the new phones I cant see enough new in the Xs to justify even a hundred bucks more for the difference unless you live or spend lots of time in someplace that the new radio's make a difference in (T-Mobile band 71). Coming from any of the other iPhone's I would be considering the Xr. I think its probably a pretty solid phone for the cost. My Girlfriend will most likely be upgrading from a 7 256 to it next month.
 
All OLED WILL burn in, but for some people it will take many, many years, and others it takes a few months. If you leave your screen on 100% brightness, and set the screen time-out to 10 minutes or never? Yeah, you're gonna be fucked. Set it to auto-brightness and a 1-2 minute screen shut off? You're fine.

I've used many, MANY OLED screens back in the day, from the regular pentile AMOLEDs on the Samsung (Samsung Moment), to when they actually made SAMOLED, to the newer OLEDs. I think only ONCE (on the shitty ass Moment) did I have burn-in.

This is exactly my point. MOST people aren't going to experience burn in on a phone unless they are an extreme use case. If you keep your phone for years, sure, but most people are going to upgrade every other year at the latest.
 
The XR is the most intriguing as it’s still using LCD. I don’t care for OLED on phones, so I’m hoping for a full HD one in the future.
 
The XR is the most intriguing as it’s still using LCD. I don’t care for OLED on phones, so I’m hoping for a full HD one in the future.

Apple makes extremely nice LCDs too. Its not going to be much of a downgrade. The LCD on my wifes 7 plus is almost indistinguishable from my X unless you are looking side by side at pure blacks and even then the lcd is really nice. The resolution is very disappointing though, even if they were going for battery life.
 
Apple makes extremely nice LCDs too. Its not going to be much of a downgrade. The LCD on my wifes 7 plus is almost indistinguishable from my X unless you are looking side by side at pure blacks and even then the lcd is really nice. The resolution is very disappointing though, even if they were going for battery life.
I don’t think it was battery life, I think they were just lowering the specs to justify the cost decrease. The phone already has impeccable battery life, upping the resolution 2mp’s would doubtlessly hurt it.
 
Either Apple has made a very large initial stock of these phones for pre-order or people aren't that interested. Many configurations (all the regular XS) are still available for pre-order as of this morning for launch day delivery and almost every other one is only 1-2 weeks out. Usually by this hour the only phones that are left are a few 64GB models and everything else is 3-4 weeks or over a month out.
 
Either Apple has made a very large initial stock of these phones for pre-order or people aren't that interested. Many configurations (all the regular XS) are still available for pre-order as of this morning for launch day delivery and almost every other one is only 1-2 weeks out. Usually by this hour the only phones that are left are a few 64GB models and everything else is 3-4 weeks or over a month out.

I was wondering about this last night. Our business rep took his sweet time didn’t get my works order in until about 12:45. We had a mix of xs and xs maxs in different colors and capacities. He said they all should arrive on the 21st.

When we did the same with our X orders, they were 2 weeks past release date 5 minutes after midnight, and a month out 10 minutes into it.
 
I was wondering about this last night. Our business rep took his sweet time didn’t get my works order in until about 12:45. We had a mix of xs and xs maxs in different colors and capacities. He said they all should arrive on the 21st.

When we did the same with our X orders, they were 2 weeks past release date 5 minutes after midnight, and a month out 10 minutes into it.
Judging by the fact that all the XS models are still available for launch day delivery - I'm guessing that the vast majority of X users are keeping their phones and not upgrading. Most XS Max configurations seem to be 1-2 weeks out now which I assume is because all the Plus users are upgrading and/or the X users who missed having a larger phone.
 
Only thing interesting is dual SIM, will all handsets be dual capable or are they allowing carriers to lock that out? These would be the only dual SIM phones sold by ATT/Verizon/T-Mo if so...
 
I'll grant it's a lower resolution screen, but I don't view any media on my phone so I don't really care if it's a lower resolution.

I'm not sure where you're coming from on the price. Phones in general cost too much nowadays, but that's nothing specific to the XR.
My old Honor 6 had 3GB ram, 1920x1080 display and quite a lot of cpu horse power at the time (also microsd slot and quite large batter). It cost 299€ four years ago. Apple is selling their crap now almost 3x the price and they are as stingy with the specs as ever. Honor Play 64GB costs less than 350 € and quite frankly offers superior value for money. 300-450 € range phones offer superior value for the money. It's more like all Apple phones cost way too much. It's not like there isn't a choice but Apple keeps ripping off their "loyal customers".
 
My old Honor 6 had 3GB ram, 1920x1080 display and quite a lot of cpu horse power at the time (also microsd slot and quite large batter). It cost 299€ four years ago. Apple is selling their crap now almost 3x the price and they are as stingy with the specs as ever. Honor Play 64GB costs less than 350 € and quite frankly offers superior value for money. 300-450 € range phones offer superior value for the money. It's more like all Apple phones cost way too much. It's not like there isn't a choice but Apple keeps ripping off their "loyal customers".

Its part of marketing. Apple has really pushed the last few generations of being a luxury brand. They market the devices in a way that make people want them, even at higher prices. I don't think I would be wrong in saying that a huge majority of their users don't give a shit about the specs, they just want the new iphone, will love it, and won't mind paying the money for it.
 
My old Honor 6 had 3GB ram, 1920x1080 display and quite a lot of cpu horse power at the time (also microsd slot and quite large batter). It cost 299€ four years ago. Apple is selling their crap now almost 3x the price and they are as stingy with the specs as ever. Honor Play 64GB costs less than 350 € and quite frankly offers superior value for money. 300-450 € range phones offer superior value for the money. It's more like all Apple phones cost way too much. It's not like there isn't a choice but Apple keeps ripping off their "loyal customers".
What's the price of support?
What's the price of a significantly higher resale value?

Is it really a rip-off if Apple is supporting their phones for a significant more number of years?
 
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When we did the same with our X orders, they were 2 weeks past release date 5 minutes after midnight, and a month out 10 minutes into it.

The X had a screen shortage and initial stock was (rumored) to be Apples lowest release count ever. They didn't get the screen issue solved for a month or two. Normally on Apple release, people will wait a max of 2+ weeks for initial pre-orders.

Only thing interesting is dual SIM, will all handsets be dual capable or are they allowing carriers to lock that out? These would be the only dual SIM phones sold by ATT/Verizon/T-Mo if so...

They are using eSIM, out of the big carriers I Think only Sprint doesn't support it. World wide there are only 9 major carriers that support it so far, but I'm sure this will expand eventually.
 
MacRumors posted a pretty good comparison between the XR and XS.

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The only stark difference is the display resolution. I will be following this model really closely as I don't think those extra features are worth the additional cost and I won't be upgrading till next year when I need to. So, will the lowering of resolution be that detrimental that the display will be worse than my 6S+? That's probably what matters to me the most right now, since the XR isn't losing much in the way of how the phone actually operates compared to the XS. The screen alone (going by PPI alone) difference is quite massive and would classify as justification for the price increase for some people but I'm not trying to spend $1100 on my phone lol.
 
The only stark difference is the display resolution.

... and it's an LCD, not OLED, which is a fairly significant thing overall.

Personally I think the "R" might mean Recycled as it's made from recycled components from previous iPhones, and I probably wouldn't be far off the mark. :)
 
I wonder if the Pixel 3 would be any better at photography than the XR. We know it wouldn't be better from a performance standing. It's very hard to consider any other flagship phone unless you must have the XS/XS Max or if you're just an Apple hater.
 
I wonder if the Pixel 3 would be any better at photography than the XR. We know it wouldn't be better from a performance standing. It's very hard to consider any other flagship phone unless you must have the XS/XS Max or if you're just an Apple hater.

I suspect Google may still have an edge, if just because its AI-assisted photography is top notch and may get a boost if there's an updated camera sensor on the Pixel 3. With that said: the iPhone Xr is great news in that it'll bring this kind of photography to a considerably wider audience. And Apple may not be as experienced at this as Google, but it's no slouch.
 
I'm interested to see how Apple's new Smart HDR will compare to Google's HDR+ since the two sound similar now. Hopefully this means Apple's noise reduction will be less aggressive as it currently makes certain pictures appear soft due to loss in detail.
 
... and it's an LCD, not OLED, which is a fairly significant thing overall.

Personally I think the "R" might mean Recycled as it's made from recycled components from previous iPhones, and I probably wouldn't be far off the mark. :)
Recycled? It’s a new body frame, camera, SoC, speaker ... I mean ... lol wut!?!?
 
I'm interested to see how Apple's new Smart HDR will compare to Google's HDR+ since the two sound similar now. Hopefully this means Apple's noise reduction will be less aggressive as it currently makes certain pictures appear soft due to loss in detail.
I think they will be the same, Apple tried to brute force HDR in the past and while it worked at first they lost the fidelity rate fast. I’ll wait to see the comparisons. Pictures aren’t exactly something I care deeply about which is why I don’t give a crap if I get the cameras with the second lens.
 
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