https://www.techradar.com/news/new-iphone-launch-live-blog
Welcome to TechRadar’s latest iPhone launch live blog.
It’s new iPhone day, and we’re in California ready for the Apple launch event where we’re expecting to see three new phones, a watch and maybe even a new tablet at the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple HQ.
The event kicked off at 10am PT, 1pm ET, 6pm BST, and we’ll keep you updated will all the latest gossip, announcements and insight right here, with our iPhone launch live blog.
- Everything you need to know: iPhone XS | iPhone XS Max | iPhone XR
New iPhone launch live blog
All times in Pacific Daylight Time (PT)
11.43 – Wait… are we going to get anything iOS 12 at all? Tim is moving on and wrapping things up… surely the new iPhone XS pair will come with the new iOS system?
That’s it – we’re done! That’s so odd about iOS 12, but thanks for sticking around guys.
11.41 – There’s an update on the HomePod now – with AirPlay 2, we know that it can add to things. You can search for songs by lyric, use multiple timers and make and receive calls and ping your devices to find them around the house.
Siri Shortcuts will open new options for the HomePod too.
There’s Dolby Atmos for the Apple TV 4K as well – that’s the only update for that. They’ll be available from Monday, September 17.
Mojave will be coming for the Mac as well from September 24 too. Where’s iOS 12?
11.37 – There’s a lot that people will like about the iPhone XR – it could even stop people wanting the more expensive model.
Video is over! How much are these things?
The iPhone XR will have 64GB, 128GB and 256GB storage sizes and start at $749 – that’s cheaper than the iPhone 8 Plus – and it will be available for order on October 19 and on sale a wweke later.
The iPhone XS will be $999 to start, and the iPhone XS Mac will be $1099, and both available from September 14 and can be bought from September 23. Both coming in 64GB, 256GB and 512GB variants.
The iPhone 7 will be $449 from now, and the iPhone 8 $599 now. All coming soon – but nothing on a cheaper on the iPhone X.
11.34 – Now watching the product video – we need to know how much these cost and when we can get them though.
The iPhone XR looks to be pretty decent, actually. Depending on whether it can actually get a good price.
But let’s have a word about these names from Apple. How can it expect us to call the ‘X’ a number and the letter a, well, letter?
11.30 – This phone feels like the spiritual successor to the iPhone 5C, but with loads, loads more power. There’s a TrueDepth camera on the front too for better selfies.
The battery life has been improved too – over the 8 Plus, it has 90 minutes more from your day. Apple’s specifically not giving times for using it on certain functions, which is odd.
11.28 – There’s a single sensor on the back, a 12MP wide-angle lens that’s the same as the sensor in the XS… just there’s only one of them. It’s also using the A12 Bionic chipset as well – so it can do background blur from the single sensor.
11.25 – The iPhone XR indeed – man, that’s a weird name. It’s made from 7000 series aluminum, more durable glass, comes in new finishes, white, black and blue. Oh, and coral and yellow. There’s a Product Red version too – the bezels are a little thicker and they’re only IP67, rather than 68.
It’s an LCD display that goes edge-to-edge, shrinking down the LEDs to light this thing. Basically, Apple thinks it’s made the most advanced LCD ever in a smartphone, and it’s called the ‘Liquid Retina’.
There’s 6.1-inches of visuals here, but there are fewer pixels on offer. This is more like an HD display, which makes it more about the size than the clarity (1792 x 828).
However, Apple has always been able to make LCD screens with lower resolution look that much better – it’s got TrueTone display, 120Hz refresh… what that means is it’ll look really good despite having fewer pixels.
There’s no 3D Touch here… it’s just Haptic Touch. But we doubt many people will notice that. More obvious is there’s no home button… you’ll unlock with your face using Face ID.
11.24 – Phil is now wrapping up, hopefully to give more information on the price and release date. Oh wait, there’s one more iPhone… this must be the XR. We’d forgotten about that.
Man, that camera is sticking out on the back. Single sensor.
11.23 – For those conspiracy theorists, Apple is claiming that it is doing its best to make everything last that little longer – and if you need to recycle it, there’s a new robot called Daisy to disassemble sooner.
11.17 – Wrapping up now – giving everything that we’ve just talked about the once over. Oh, now it’s how environmentally-friendly the iPhone is too. We’re hearing about how the whole system is run on 100% renewable energy – and now it’s onto the next challenge.
That’s to never mine new materials from the earth, by using recycled or renewable materials, longer-lasting products, and then they’re recycled properly.
Be interesting to see how Apple things it can do that – for instance, the iPhone logic board is now in recycled tin.
11.14 – Now we’re talking about battery life – how much longer will we get with the XS? It’ll go 30 minutes longer in the day – that’s not that much, really.
The iPhone XS Max will allow you to go 90 minutes longer… we did expect a touch more, to be honest. Is that because it’s more powerful for processing?
The new iPhone will also be dual-sim enabled, so you can have two phone numbers, or have a local data plan. There’s a new system called DSDS, dual Sim, dual standby, so you can have either running at the same time if needed.
The eSim will be coming to the iPhone as well, so you can easily have any carrier running through it if you need it (so you don’t need to plop another SIM card in there. A single SIM card in the phone, but an eSim too.
Except in China, where the iPhone XS Mac will have a dual-SIM tray. We can see many people wanting that.
11.10 – We’re now being shown what’s been improved in the camera through the great photos that can be taken. Yes, the pictures look great, but it’s hard to show whether it’s better really, as Apple has always been excellent at showing off how you can take a great photo with a smartphone.
The Bokeh mode is improved though – working out how to blur things out more effectively. Let’s see how well the iPhone XS will find the edge of the hair and face.
You can now adapt the depth of field after the photo was taken – come on Apple, Phil is making it sound like this was just invented. Wait, he just said that… how is this different from what other phones have been doing that for years? There must be a alternative method at work here.
11.05 – The camera is new apparently – a 12MP dual sensor, with larger pixels. An f/1.8 lens for better low-light, and the telephoto lens is f/2.4.
The TrueDepth camera works and RGB and IR camera together to create depth.
The image signal processor from the A12 Bionic has been improved too – working out what’s being shown, so it connects with the neural engine to detect the scene, where bodies are, find where the eyes are and reduces red-eye straight away and can find the edge of the Portrait Mode easily.
That does sound like an improvement – but will it match up with the best from Samsung or Huawei at the moment?
Smart HDR is in the mix as well – allowing you to take a buffer and capturing many photos at different exposures, and a long exposure too for more shadow and merging them into one photo.
11.04 – We’re back to Kaiann (totally know her name now). Phil is back onstage to talk about the camera.
Will there be a spec upgrade?
11.00 – The new iPhones look very similar to previous ‘S’ versions – the specs are a bit better, the screen is improved, the processor faster. It’s got a new color. Is that enough to make people want to upgrade? It feels like a ‘better’ iPhone X right now.
A lot of developers coming on now – Atli Mar from Directive Mar now. Hard to see why Apple is dedicating so much time to this – yes, it’s cool like being able to see a real-time AR game, but these aren’t new features per se, more just improvements.
More chatting on stereo widening from those speakers. It feels like Apple is at pains to point out that there are real, useful upgrades on the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.
10.58 – A new app from HomeCourt can recognise a hoop and basketball automatically, and can show whether you make or miss a basket. It’s faster and capable of seeing more in real time, and thus with things like real-time player tracking you can get more from the information.
10.55 – Todd Howard from Bethesda is talking about how much better gaming is on phones these days.
He’s going to show the new Elder Scrolls game, Blades. It’s not adding a lot more than just showing how graphically it’s more intense and the OLED display is better for the contrast ratios, and the stereo-widening makes sound better.
It’s coming to iOS this fall, but is available for pre-order now.
10.53 – ARKit 2 is on the cards as well, with better capabilities for working out what’s being looked at and object identification. Those Apple glasses are surely not that far away. Oh man, what if that’s the ‘One More Thing’ today? That would be why we’re running so fast. We’ve got over an hour left of the event and we’ve done the expected big stuff.
10.52 – Her name is Kaiann! Thankfully Siri just showed it for us when we were seeing more on Siri’s shortcuts.
‘iPhone XS is the best platform for A12 Bionic’. That’s hardly surprising, right?
10.50 – We’re hearing more on the A12 Bionic – apps can launch up to 30% faster now. That’s some good stats for most users.
But we’re hearing about machine learning now – getting better curation of photos and videos, and giving you the right info on maps when needed. And the new chip can really add in machine learning, so it can make Animojis more capable so you can put a tiger’s head when you’re on a FaceTime call.
10.49 – The iPhone XS will come in 512GB variants – Samsung had a short time in the light of having the only major smartphone on the market doing that.
Apple has just brought someone else out on stage and we think they said her name is ‘Cayenne’. Dammit – why won’t the write the names down for us?
10.47 – The A12 Bionic has an eight core machine learning system in the neural engine, and can figure things out on the go to work out the best way to process data with the phone.
Where the A11 could do 600 billion processes a second, but the A12 can do 5 trillion for the neural engine processing.
That’s all well and good, but most people will want to know how much it saves battery life, right?
10.45 – The chipset is a 7nm chip – that’s pretty impressive too, and it’s called the A12 Bionic. That’s what we heard and it’s the first time Apple has ever stuck with a name. Interesting.
10.41 – There’s 3D touch, color reproduction that’s the best that Apple has ever made, and the stereo sound is wider thanks to improved speaker. The sound looks to be going left and right, rather that from the earpiece. That can’t be right.
Right, Face ID next – in the notch there’s still the microphone, infrared camera, TrueDepth camera etc etc. Is it any faster though?
Yep – it’s like Phil knows what we want – it’s got faster algorithms, and it’s ‘the most secure facial authentication ever in a smartphone’. That’s a niche claim still.
10.39 – the 5.8-inch OLED display has a 2436 x 1175 display, with Dolby Vision and HDR 10 as well supported.
There’s a 60% better dynamic range for colors over the iPhone X.
There’s a larger model as well – what we’ve heard as the iPhone XS Max – and that’s the name of it. It’ll have a 6.5-inch display, with a 2688 x 1242 resolution and the same 458ppi sharpness.
10.37 – There’s a small and a large version, as expected. The iPhone XS is confirmed – but yeah, they’re calling it the 10-S. NO.
It’s made of stainless steel, a new gold finish (on the front and glass) and Phil Schiller is calling it the most ‘beautiful iPhone we’ve ever made’.
It’s also got more, new glass that’s the most ‘durable ever in a smartphone’. Gold, Silver and Space Gray on offer as colors – and it’s IP68, so it’s up there with the most water- and dust-resistant phones out there.
10.35 – Tim is back on stage. What’s next? iPhone!
‘iPhone X defined the future of the smartphone’. OK, Tim. Let’s see where you take this. If it’s the XS then we’re not calling it the 10-S. It’s either the X-S or Ten-Snake.
iPhone X was apparently the number one smartphone in the world – we’re not sure where that data is from, but Tim is talking up 98% iPhone x customer satisfaction.
Apparently, what’s coming is ‘BY FAR the most advanced iPhone we’ve ever created’.
