iPhone XS
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iPhone XS
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The iPhone XS (pronounced "ten-S") is a smartphone designed and marketed by Apple, announced on September 12, 2018, and released on September 21, 2018, alongside the iPhone XS Max and the later-shipping iPhone XR. It applied the S-year treatment to the iPhone X: the same 5.8-inch all-screen stainless design, rebuilt inside around the A12 Bionic — the first 7-nanometer chip in any phone — with a deeply revised camera whose Smart HDR marked Apple's full pivot into computational photography.
The XS gained IP68 water resistance, dual-SIM via eSIM (a lineup first), a new Gold steel finish, faster Face ID, and Gigabit-class LTE. Its Max sibling stretched the identical package to 6.5 inches — the largest iPhone display to date — at the line's highest price yet, $1,099.
Reviews called the XS excellent and its upgrade case thin from the X — one year and one letter apart — while the phone's real competition turned out to be internal: the iPhone XR, three-quarters the price with the same chip, claimed the sales crown. The XS pair was discontinued after a single year when the iPhone 11 Pro models succeeded them.
1 Design✎
The XS is the iPhone X's design to the tenth of a millimeter — 5.8-inch OLED, surgical-steel band, glass back — with three changes: a Gold finish joining Silver and Space Gray, "the most durable glass ever in a smartphone" (again), and sealing upgraded to IP68, rated for two meters of water for thirty minutes, with Apple noting survival in orange juice and tea among its test liquids. At 177 g it gained three grams. The antenna lines rearranged subtly to accommodate the new radio set — the one external tell.
2 Hardware✎
| Developer | Apple |
|---|---|
| Generation | 12th |
| Announced | September 12, 2018 |
| Released | September 21, 2018 |
| Discontinued | September 10, 2019 |
| Predecessor | iPhone X |
| Related | iPhone XS Max · iPhone XR |
| Successor | iPhone 11 Pro |
| Display | 5.8-inch Super Retina OLED 2436 × 1125 (458 ppi) HDR · True Tone · 3D Touch |
| Chip | Apple A12 Bionic (2 + 4 cores, 7 nm · 8-core Neural Engine) |
| RAM | 4 GB |
| Storage | 64 GB · 256 GB · 512 GB |
| Rear cameras | 12 MP wide, f/1.8, OIS (1.4µ pixels) + 12 MP telephoto, f/2.4, OIS Smart HDR · adjustable-depth Portrait |
| Front camera | 7 MP TrueDepth · faster Face ID |
| Battery | 2,658 mAh · Qi wireless charging |
| Connectivity | Gigabit-class LTE · dual SIM (eSIM) Wi-Fi 802.11ac · Bluetooth 5.0 |
| Durability | IP68 · stainless steel frame |
| Colors | Space Gray · Gold · Silver |
| Launch price | $999 (64 GB) · $1,149 (256 GB) · $1,349 (512 GB) |
| OS | iOS 12.0 ~ 18 |
The A12 Bionic led the industry to 7 nanometers: two Vortex performance cores, four Tempest efficiency cores, a four-core Apple GPU, and a Neural Engine leaping from two cores to eight — from 600 billion to five trillion operations per second in one generation. That machine-learning surge, more than CPU speed, defined the phone: Smart HDR, faster Face ID, and Core ML apps all ran on it. RAM rose to 4 GB, storage topped out at a first-for-iPhone 512 GB, and eSIM brought dual-SIM capability (dual physical SIMs in a China-only variant).
3 Camera✎
The camera counted the same — dual 12-megapixel, 2× telephoto — and photographed differently: the wide sensor's pixels grew to 1.4µ on a sensor a third larger, and Smart HDR fused up to nine exposures per shutter press, capturing highlight and shadow detail single frames could not. Portrait mode gained adjustable depth of field after the shot — dragging a slider from f/1.4 to f/16 — and video gained extended dynamic range at 30 fps. The step from the X was visible in backlit and low-light shots; the step past rivals reopened the computational race Google's Pixel had been leading.
4 Software✎
The XS shipped with iOS 12, whose headline was speed on old devices but whose Shortcuts app and Screen Time debuted here, and Memoji extended Animoji into customizable avatars. Supported through iOS 18 — its final major version, as iOS 26 raised the silicon floor past the A12.
5 Release and reception✎
Reviews rated the XS the best phone of its moment and struggled to recommend it: X owners had little reason to move, and everyone else was pointed at the $749 iPhone XR with the same chip. "Excellent, iterative, expensive" was the consensus; the camera and IP68 the concrete wins; "beta-gate" — early units preferring known Wi-Fi/LTE bands poorly — a brief firmware blip. The Max variant absorbed most of the pair's demand, signaling where big-money buyers had gone.
Both XS models were discontinued on September 10, 2019, replaced by the renamed iPhone 11 Pro line.
6 Legacy✎
The XS's fingerprints are architectural: the A12's 7 nm process and eight-core Neural Engine set the template every flagship chip since has followed, Smart HDR made multi-frame fusion the default meaning of "taking a photo," and eSIM began the SIM tray's slow disappearance (complete in US models by the iPhone 14). It was also the phone that proved the "S year" naming had run its course — the next generation dropped the scheme for Pro, the branding the line still uses in the current iPhone 17 Pro.