Six Big Surprises from Apple's 2018 iPhone Reveal

If you woke up at 12:00 a.m. PT/3:00 a.m. ET on Friday, Sept. 14 to pre-order a new iPhone from Apple, you likely have some good news coming your way.

After months of wait, Apple finally announced its 2018 iPhone lineup. iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are the new successors to the iPhone X.

As always, Apple is going all out, in its minimalistic trademark type of way. This applies to any iPhone that now has iOS 11, so from an iPhone 5S to newer.

This feature is not available on the single-lens camera found on the XR.

In all probability, in a few days, we will have more accurate information regarding both the availability and the prices of the two iPhone devices. The iPhone Xs and Xs Max respectively feature 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch AMOLED screens.

"Through Apple's iPhone Upgrade Program, customers in the USA can get iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs Max with the protection of AppleCare+, choose their carrier (no multiyear service contract required) and have the opportunity to upgrade to a new iPhone every year", Apple said. Just like the iPhone X, the XS costs $999, and comes with several high-end specifications and features, including water resistance in up to three feet of water for up to 30 minutes, a dual-lens rear camera system, Apple's new A12 Bionic chipset, Face ID, and a maximum of 512GB internal storage. Last year's iPhone X could crank through 600 billion operations per second, its new version can work nearly 10 times faster, reaching 5 trillion operations per second. $100. Thereabouts, anyway. The same goes for the iPhone 7, too.

The iPhone XS starts at $1,649 for the 64GB version, while the iPhone XS Max is priced at $1,799 for the 64GB version. When they were rattling off the specs for the "cheap iPhone X" I was shocked at how similar it was to the iPhone Xs.

The iPhone Xr will come in 64GB, 128Gb and 256Gb options and will start at US$749. Update: T-Mobile ups the iPhone Xs deal with an iPhone BOGO deal and free additional voice line starting Saturday, September 15. The truly killer features are the larger screens, which Apple has pushed all the way to the edges of the devices, and the new size options.

The XR is also available in a choice of six colours: blue, black, yellow, white, red or coral. Overall the Xr is probably the phone that has generated the most excitement from the event, whether or not Apple intended for that to be the case.

The camera now has something Apple calls Smart HDR, which means it takes a bunch of pictures all at once and then grabs data from them to come up with one wonderful shot.

In the end, you will want to choose to buy the iPhone Xs at your favorite store or at your primary choice of carrier.