Apple just took the wraps off two of its biggest products of the year: the iPhone Xs and the iPhone Xs Max. These are the company’s premium new iPhones, succeeding last year’s iPhone X. Cupertino is launching a total of three new iPhones this year at the event today, and these are two of the main upgrades of the year. There’s also a 6.1-inch iPhone coming out today, but the iPhone Xs and the iPhone Xs Max are really the main highlights.

Both the iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max are incremental upgrades from last year’s iPhone X. Both the devices include Apple’s new A12 Bionic processor that’s expected to run things slightly faster, with 4GB RAM. The new A12 Bionic processor is the industry’s first 7nm processor, including 2 performance cores that are 15% faster while using 40% less power. App launches are up to 30% faster on the iPhone Xs, according to Apple. The upgraded A12 GPU now includes a Neural Engine that’s going to speed up machine learning on the new iPhone Xs, with Apple’s Core ML technology getting up to 9x faster while using much, much less power — at 1/10th of the power, in fact. All these performance upgrades are industry-leading improvements.

But let’s talk about the new displays: both the iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max come with OLED (Super Retina) panels, with the iPhone Xs coming with a 5.8-inch panel (2436×1125 resolution, 2.6 million pixels) and the iPhone Xs Max (2688×1242 resolution, 3.3 million pixels) packs Apple’s biggest ever display panel on a phone: 6.5-inch. That’s exactly why Apple’s increasing the battery size on this year’s iPhone models — with the iPhone Xs offering an additional 30 minutes battery life than the original iPhone X, and the iPhone Xs Max offering an additional 90 minutes in battery life.

As for the camera, Apple has improved the true-tone flash on the device. The wide-angle camera on the back has an improved sensor, plus the usual 12MP telephoto sensor. The company’s including a new 7MP camera on the front which is up to two times faster, according to Apple. The phones now include a new Smart HDR feature that will lead to a general improvement in the details of your photos. But here’s the big new feature: adjustable aperture — with the new iPhone Xs, you can now adjust the aperture (“depth”) on the fly, even after taking the picture. That’s obviously not new on a phone, though it’s certainly a huge upgrade for the iPhone camera.

Since all of the new iPhones are based on the original iPhone X, the iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max will come with Apple’s popular Face ID technology for unlocking the device. In fact, Apple says the company has updated Face ID’s performance on the new iPhone Xs with new faster Secure Enclave and algorithms. Apple will also offer the new iPhones with dual SIM support, through an additional eSIM. But in China, Apple will be selling an exclusive edition of the device that comes with two physical dual SIM slots.

This year, Apple’s even upgrading the storage options for the iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max. They are now available with up to 512GB of storage, which should be more than enough for most users, though we still don’t have an option to expand the storage. Pluis, you are getting improved wireless charging, and Bluetooth 5.0 on the new iPhones.

Apple’s new iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max will be available in silver, space gray, and a new gold color option, with IP68 water resistance. The regular iPhone Xs will start at $999, while the iPhone Xs Max will start at $1099. Ships September 21st, pre-orders open this Friday.

Tagged with Apple Event, Apple iPhone, iPhone, iPhone XS, iPhone Xs Max