iPhone XS and XR — Every New Model Gets Face ID

The iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR were announced together on 12 September 2018, but they did not ship together. The XS and XS Max were released on Friday 21 September; the XR followed about a month later, on Friday 26 October. Pre-orders were split the same way: 14 September for the XS and XS Max, 19 October for the XR.

Japan was in the first wave for both. Apple listed Japan and China among the more than 30 launch countries and territories for the XS and XS Max, and Japan, China, the US and the UK among the more than 50 for the XR. In Japan, pre-orders for both opened at 16:01.

What changed from the iPhone X

The iPhone X of 2017 was the first iPhone without a home button, with the Face ID cameras housed in the notch at the top of the screen. All three 2018 models kept that design: no home button, and Face ID for authentication.

Apple called the 6.5-inch XS Max display the biggest ever in an iPhone. The XR used an LCD rather than OLED, which Apple described as the most advanced LCD in a smartphone, set in a band of 7000 series aluminium and offered in six colours: white, black, blue, yellow, coral and (PRODUCT)RED.

A12 Bionic and the first 7nm chip

The common thread was the A12 Bionic, which Apple described as "the first 7-nanometer chip ever in a smartphone". That is Apple's claim. The Neural Engine grew to eight cores and, by Apple's figure, could perform up to five trillion operations per second.

That claim of being first needs a footnote. IEEE Spectrum reported on the day of the announcement that Huawei had made the same claim at the end of August. Huawei announced its Kirin 980 on 31 August, but the Mate 20 that carried it did not launch until 16 October, while the iPhone XS was in stores on 21 September. Huawei announced first; Apple shipped first. Both chips came from the same foundry, TSMC, which had begun 7nm volume production in April 2018 (see TSMC's 7nm production).

The XR: the later, cheaper one

The XR was not simply a cheaper XS. It had one rear camera and still produced Portrait mode background blur in software. It had no 3D Touch pressure layer, and instead used Haptic Touch, a long press with haptic feedback — in Apple's description, a way to launch the camera or flashlight instantly by pressing on the screen. Haptic Touch spread to every model in the iPhone 11 generation the following year, which ended 3D Touch (see the iPhone 6s and 3D Touch).

Phil Schiller said in the press release that the XR made it possible for even more people to experience the latest iPhone X technology at a more affordable price. At $749 in the US, it was $250 less than the XS.

Not an all-notch lineup

It is not accurate to say the whole lineup went notched this year. On announcement day Apple stopped selling the iPhone X, iPhone 6s, 6s Plus and the original iPhone SE, but it kept the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8, with their home buttons and Touch ID, at lower prices: from $449 for the iPhone 7 and $599 for the iPhone 8. What is accurate is that all three new models used Face ID.

The year Apple stopped counting

That autumn Apple also stopped publishing iPhone unit sales. On its earnings call of 1 November 2018, CFO Luca Maestri said that from the December quarter — the first quarter of fiscal 2019 — Apple would no longer report unit sales for the iPhone, Mac and iPad, arguing that with wider price ranges across each product line, units no longer reflected the health of the business.

What came next

The XR's successor was the iPhone 11 of 2019, with the US starting price cut from $749 to $699. The XS line was renamed iPhone 11 Pro. The whole series is on the iPhone timeline, and the company on Apple.