Everything You Need to Know: Apple iPhone XS, XS Max, XR, and Apple Watch Series 4 Keynote By PCMag

I'm Dan Costa in chief of PC Magazine, and welcome to a special edition of one cool thing. Today was Apple iPhone day. That means that the most powerful and largest company in the world has at least has released new versions of its most important product. We're gonna break down what that means to you, and I'm gonna. Do it with my esteemed colleagues. Here you are esteemed if these lights are really hot, so we're going to be steamed in about 15 minutes.

If we don't get through. This show: Victorious song, consumer electronics, analysts and wearables expert and Alex Colo me managing editor, consumer electronics and co-host of the phone show we're going to be talking about phone. So it's perfect to have you here: okay, I'm ready to do it, so they just made the announcement. I just want to get through all the products and like the bare minimum about them, and then we'll talk about what they mean, how impressed we were with the presentation. What some key features work! I found some things in this presentation that surprised me, so we'll get to those in just a minute, but the biggest announcement, probably the iPhone excess starts at $$1000199 uses the new a12 CPU has a super Retina display 5.8 inch display and is available September 21st, it's larger cousin, the iPhone 10s Mac starts at 1099 also uses the 812 CPU same Super Retina display, but it's 6.5 inches available in the 21st. A low-cost, iPhone XR starts at 749 uses the a12 CPU, but cheats a little on the display uses.

An LCD only has a single camera system, but that's how you make the $750 price point and then the Apple Watch Series for 30%, larger display I think is the biggest difference, the most noticeable difference, but then a whole host of more sensitive sensors and little features built into that, including an EKG which is I, think pretty cool that starts at 399, and it ships on 921 and then the other news, iOS 12. Also, it's going to be shipping on September 17th, so a suite of new products, new iPhones and a new Apple Watch. They want they started with the Apple Watch, and maybe we start there. Did you get what you expected from the series for well, you know actually news about the series for kind of meat right beforehand, news about everything leaks ever yeah I mean like it leaks, oh yeah? It was what I expected because of the leak we did see like you mentioned that the screens are bigger, the actual key sizes are bigger as well, so they used to be 38, millimeters and 42 millimeters. Now we're having 40 millimeters and 44 millimeters and that's great from the perspective of you're gonna, be able to see more on your wrist, like I've, got the Fitbit Versa on now, and you can see that there's like a really huge bezel on there, what's really cool with this new series for watches, but you basically don't have a bezel.

You have a lot more screen real estate to play around with things one of the new watch faces is gonna, have complications, eight complications which is pretty complicated. So what are we should? You should explain what complications were a couple? People I were simple I'm sitting with those acquire wait, we're complications a good thing, and why do we need more of them? Sir complications they're, basically like tiny little widgets that you can see directly from the watch face so like. Let's say one of the things that they were highlighting. We've got it up on the big board. There yeah, like one of the things that they were highlighting, is that you'll be able to put and customize different things that will make it really easy from a glance to see like your steps, if you're super into fitness- or you know like it'll, just make it easier for you to just tap your wrist and be able to go into your music or just hop your wrist and to be able to see what your calendar looks like.

So it just makes it easier to take a glance and know. What's up from your watch see the Apple Watch. We were talking a little before the announcement because we thought something was going to be coming. I was kind of pooh-poohing the market and saying yeah, it's the number one Smartwatch on the market, but the Smartwatch markets been kind of a disappointment, and you said well actually there's a lot of people that really love the Apple Watch and are committed to it. Well, yeah like it's funny, because we have a bunch of people in the office who are fake, Apple Watch fans like our cameraman, is the biggest Apple Watch.

Man I know a lot of people in my life are huge, Apple Watch fans they use it all the time and especially since the LTE version came out like I, was surprised to see that a lot of people and really value that because they want to carry their phone on, runs so like that. I personally was not a huge fan of the series Three's battery life, especially with LTE I, had a 30-minute phone call, while testing, and it went from 100 to zero in 30 minutes. So that's that's not great, but you know the Apple Watch is just convenient. If you're an iPhone user, there's no Smartwatch that more seamlessly just builds the entire experience, you can get everything like super easily when I am testing Apple watches, it's super fun because I am an iPhone user, and it's just like my life is so much easier everything just kind of works seamlessly, although it is worth pointing out, they did say that the series 4 is gonna, have the same battery life, which is kind of you were expecting them to pick it up. Just a little yeah an hour.

Give me an hour like it was actually just like one of the things I was looking for, because I think I tweeted out, like it all, means nothing unless you bump up the battery life and that's especially true when I think about the heart rate, the heart health, like features that they rolled out I, think they rolled out. What's new is that they're saying that you can get notifications if your heart rate as well notifications, if your heart rate is irregular, and they've actually built in electrodes into the back, so that you can do to ECG sum? All of that kind of useless unless you have perfect battery life. So what is it? What is it now? It's it? Is it 16 hours of battery life that they say ? 18, which is not all that not quite over it's, not quite all that, especially six months after owning it, the battery life is gonna, be down a little, and you're going to be charging it at least every day. Well, you can't track your sleep. Maybe needs 24 hours.

You're going to do an entire day in the sleep. Trucking I think is one of the most compelling things about smartwatches, and the platform is to have that 24 hour record. Also, a good battery life is gonna, be key to people sticking with a wearable one of like when I did my dev feature about what why people don't stick with their wearable battery life is a huge thing because having to charge something having to have a proprietary charger with you in your bag every day, it's a big reason. Why I like I, actually plan when I'm going to sleep and when I do stuff based around when I have to this thing, and this thing has a four to five day battery life, if you're with an Apple Watch, if you're doing a run, you're going to get maybe twelve hours max, you don't want to carry that charger with you, especially if you have a bunch of events during the day, so it's just it. You're going to get two days out of it maximum, and it's just it's not gonna, be consistent.

Also, you don't get continuous heart rate monitoring with the Apple Watch. You only get it once every ten minutes or so and I didn't realize that the continuous heart rate is only when it detects that you're actually running. So when it comes to data its spot. Checking okay I didn't realize that I thought it was gonna, be perpetual throughout the process. Now continuous heart rate monitoring is a huge drain on battery.

So it's just like that people. So the battery life I think you correctly assess is the number one complaint about the Apple Watch and that's not been resolved here. It didn't get any better. That said, like the host of health features that they loaded into this thing, yet the ability to detect atrial fibrillation is pretty extraordinary and actually send you an alert and say you know what you're having some kind of heart issue. You should relax, calm down and possibly go see.

A doctor I was pretty I want to see how that works out in testing I'm a little more skeptical, the FDA or anything. Those big FDA numbers up on the ceiling. I have mixed feelings, because getting FDA approval is a big hurdle for wearables makers. Like we've seen a bunch of more medical base, devices come out at like shows like see yes and see weak and just all a bunch of things and um FDA approval is a big reason why we don't have blood pressure monitors or that sort of thing like it has to be accurate, but when it comes to like heart, health consistency is really important. When you take, the EKG is gonna, be important.

Knowing having a plan with your doctor is gonna, be important and also being able to show your doctor. This information they're just gonna, look at a bunch of charts and go what am I looking at yeah. So it's well we'll see. Should we just pause here and take a question? Do you think that they would ever come out with a round face for the Apple Watch, or is this like too much part of their brand that square inches, I friend abandon the circular face? No, the circular face is definitely a more classic look. When we talk to people- or at least when anyone asks me about smartwatches and wearables, they always go.

Do they have a circular face, but I think we're going to be stuck with the square going forward? It's the most popular smell selling, Smartwatch and watch, and it's going to be a square face. They have no reason to make it circular there and there and watch out watch I was five is God all that interfaces are cute around that step square face. My question was with that. You know they made a big thing about taking advantage of that extra real estate. To add all these different interface complications.

What do you are? We going to be able to use that same OS on earlier versions of the watch you are. You are gonna, be able to use, watch OS, 5 earlier versions, lets a watch, but you probably won't get some series for specific features like fall detection, because that requires the upgraded sensors, and you know the EKG stuff. It's not gonna work with optical heart rate, okay, so into that was the other feature. I want to talk about fall detection that was unexpected. I had no idea that they were going to do that they improve the accelerometers, and they can detect when you're falling and then can call for help.

If you are you're prone, I mean you guys are so lucky that I'm casting because I'm the world's biggest klutz, so I will fall down. Do you have an emergency contact? No good we'll work it up so, like all of these features, make me think that the Apple Watch is gonna, be really great for elderly consumers and, if you're, looking for a Christmas gift for your grandma or grandpa. This is a really compelling use case for it compared to other wearables like I. Don't know if you want to be a good kid, get your parents, oh here's, a question and I mean: do you think that elderly people will be able to figure out how to use that interface? Yes, all right. All right! Ask unity at the very least they'll be able to go.

Oh! This is the time cool. That's true! So if you only use the watch functionality without additional complications, we can get back to the Apple Watch. But I want to talk a little about the iPhone 2, because that is the most important product in Apple's portfolio. It generates almost 70% of all of their revenue, hugely important product, the iPhone 10s, not a's an S year. So it's not a huge improvement over last year right.

But what was your taper you disappointed did? Was it about what you expected well I'll, tell you what I'm it just planted, and I am just putting in the price there were rumors that it could have been cheaper. I was really hoping was going to be cheaper because I'm I have an old iPhone right here, I'm planning to upgrade this year, I'm going to spend at least a thousand bucks to do it to get a tent to get a tennis right, and so they announced three new iPhones today of the two new ones. The least you could spend a thousand dollars if you want the ten are that one starts at 7:49. I really feel like with these three phones they're pushing you away from that. Ten are like they want this thousand dollar phone to be the new default iPhone, and that I find disappointed.

I mean we when it came out a year ago, I was there at the Apple event, and you know I was trying to make a assessment of how valuable these new features were. How valuable this front facing depth sensor camera was, and I was, like. You know I, don't think anybody's going to buy a thousand dollar camera, but Apple users. Some of them, will buy anything and that's sort of what happened in the market. They did.

You know it wasn't a huge success, but they sold a lot of iPhone tens right, and it was enough to actually drive up the average selling price of iPhones across their entire line over $700. Okay. So for the first time ever made them a ton of money, and now they're sort of doubling down on not only the form factor, but also the price points. So it's its $1,000 and up. If you want to go for the max size, no, the one that I want is its $1,150, so you want to 56 gigabytes to it and that's not even the matter.

No, the max is 1449 I. Think that's insane I mean think about that 15 min ours, and you can get payment plans too. You know they spread the installments out over ninety-four months, but I mean that's still, that's what you used to pay for a laptop yeah and I mean now carriers, don't subsidize. So, no matter how you want to cut it, you're going to be paying the full cost of these phones, and that is a bummer, so Apple would say, and I wrote down some same of the adjectives it was beautiful. It's gorgeous its uncompromising, it's a's! It's simplistic in its elegance! Is it enough? I mean what is it? What do you feel like you're? Getting for that thousand dollars um? So for me, like I just said, I'm planning to buy one, even though I'm also complaining about at the same time that's typical iPad, iPhone user, behavior, I hate it and can I.

Please have enough. Thank you. Ma'am may I have another I'm also going to be doing that right, and so the reason that I wanted is because, first, if you want, you know the best camera that Apple offers you're going to have to get this. It's its the only one. The ten line has the two sensors on the back.

You get the wide-angle camera, and then you get the other sensor which I'm already forgetting what it does, because they were talking about it at length with so many, in-depth explanations about it. We've got wide-angle telephoto on one side and then the depth field sensor, which enables all the AR applications right. So that, for me, is one of the main, because I mean I remember even last year, seeing the camera on the iPhone time, and you wouldn't be a plus for that matter. It's a great camera, especially if you have like, if you're coming from a 7 and a 7s or anything earlier, it will blow you away the difference. You're also going to get I mean.

Luckily even the 10r has a faster processor. So the good news is even if you want the less expensive new phone you're going to get the same amount of power across the board, you're not going to get the same. Camera capabilities and I mean face ID on all three phones. They do share a lot of similarities. Yeah, I was I mean I was impressed that they use the same CPU on the arm.

Oh, I was expecting it to be more significantly pared down from the 10s and 10s max they saved money on the CPU. They saved money on the screen, because it's an LCD screen, not an OLED screen I, don't know how big a difference that is because I haven't seen the screen yeah, they said it's. The most amazing screen LCD screen ever made liquid retina is the new term that they coined to make it seem even more premium. I have no idea what it looks like I'm sure it looks good, but the difference is I mean in the 10s model. You do.

You are getting a hundred more than 100, more pixels per inch. I think it was something like 448 in the 10s versus 330, something so the tennis is gonna, be sharper, the two and then the other difference I think it's an aluminum versus stainless steel, the stainless steel frame on the 10 -. Let's talk more about those AR functions which have lamented a big deal about last year, and they still had some great applications this year, like is that why you would buy a phone like? Do you feel it all justified and getting that, or you just want a great camera and the a stuff happens to be built in I am far more interested in what the rear camera can do? Then you know like the fun an emoji and other sort of you know, placing things around the room where they are, what about touch ID I was actually kind of hoping that touch ID would come back and that and that face ID would just be like it would be an option that was available, but you'd still be able to use your fingerprint, and they were like they did have friends with the 10, and I'm just being able to go like this is great where, as I come up pruned from my shower after workouts, and I'm like I, don't get it, it doesn't work out its days. I. Do we have a question aside from the camera? Why would anyone really buy the 10s over the 10r um? So that's a great question.

Double cameras a little of a construction. What are the mean, differentiating points in the screen? The screen right, I mean I will say it's its. We can't show anything on camera anything even if we had both phones here, it's hard to show of does look significantly better than LCD it's richer, and I'm, not talking to talking about the new phone, so I'm just talking about throwing some of you've seen in the past. If you are like heavily interested in the visuals, OLED does look a lot nicer. You know what else is interesting.

I'm just realizing now is that they usually tell you what the battery life is in total number of hours, and in this presentation they said how much more you were getting this year as opposed to last year right, but I think the 10r comparisons were to the eight plus, yes, which we don't know what the totals were. No so I think that there may be a little office fashion there. We don't know that the battery life is going to perform the same because I think LEDs more energy efficient. They know that LCD right. So there are a lot of variables there that we won't know until we actually get to test yeah.

They said the tennis is a half hour longer than 210. The tennis max is an hour and a half longer than the 10 and the 10 hours an hour and a half longer than the 8 plus, so I mean those are all yeah I feel like it's designed to confuse. It was like it's usually not that they don't obscure it that much. They were usually very proud of it right and this time I felt like there might be something in there that, like part of the big reason why I feel like after three knows that my battery on my trusty little seven is starting to like I'm starting to have to carry around portable chargers with me, and my boyfriend has a tan, and he can go two days without judging the phone, and I'm just like that's not fair, as literally I want to go two days without having to charge my phone, you deserve equal time. I deserve that like it's, it's not fair, yeah, that's um and again, that's the number one thing that consumers want in the new phones is better battery life and the best indication.

A new battery life is not necessarily the handset model. It's the fact that it's a ?, the phone is 2 years newer, and it just hasn't worn down right, and so that's not something that the vendors can really control it. Much another question someone's asking what the key differences between the 10s Max and the note 9 would be like. How do they stack up? Just based on paper part of difficult to answer right now, I would say off the top and I have. The main difference is that, with the note 9 you're getting the resident the 10s max with these names, it doesn't work with the Apple Pencil I feel like.

That is the biggest reason for anyone in general, like even if you were comparing the note 9 to the galaxy s 9, you get it because you want to be able to use the stylus as far as processing power display battery life. All those things are concerned, that is we're going to have to get those phones into the lab to test them here, because even what Apple quotes and as we were just talking about, we have no idea what those battery life numbers mean until we can run it down the same way that we run down every other phone. We can't tell you how to actually compare in the real yeah I think size-wise they're, comparable. The big difference is the platform. It's the operating system, okay, it's Android, Android versus iOS, but now Apple will have that sort of super chunky.

Large phablet form factor to please and appeal to that audience right, which they really haven't had before they did a little with the plus, but now they're really owning it. The one thing I thought was really impressive when they put the phone side-by-side, and you saw that that edge to edge screen was really the phone wasn't any bigger, even though the screen was a half inch or an inch bigger than radius model. That was pretty impressive. Okay, like that's another reason why the 10 is like a great platform right, because I didn't exist before yeah. Tell me what I am kind of upset, though, that the 10r is the only one that you could get all the clean, colors yeah.

You know, I want a cool color, but I want it on the 10s. They've got a history of doing that, though, like sort of using color to jazz up the low-end I, see yeah, that's the first time, which also proved extraordinarily effective yeah, although that was the only generation that they released them. Yeah, but yeah I mean if Apple is listening. Let's see some cool colors, ah I, don't care as much about the colors because I'm gonna just get cool jazzy cases. So that's true yeah, so all told today what was the? What was the thing that impressed you? The most was hurt.

Is there anything that you came away from like that? Blew me away because I'll say well: mine was the first and I know it's 9 Oh. Neither one of you were going to pick this okay um, but when Steve Nash came out, and he did the demo of the basketball shooting app, they would actually use AR to record your basketball shot and diagnose it and traffic 18 different points of motion and then tell you whether your release was too long or too short like that is cool, off-the-shelf technology. That's doing that kind of movement, diagnostic and analysis it just that makes me go. Look. You know what that camera has value.

This application has value this there's. The processing power in here is really sophisticated, and even if you're, just helping your kids play better at Little, League like that, just brings it home. For me, I think, that's to be completely honest. My mind just went completely blank, the second it started talking about basketball, so why don't they starve the notches on the phones? Oh, I mean so. The notch is where they have the depth, sensing camera and a lot of the other things that they're using for face ID in some AR.

So until they figure out a better way to hide it I think that's not going to be around for at least another generation or two yeah they didn't make. If anything they double down on it yeah, because now all three new phones have an option and a lot of competitors are doing the same thing right. So it's its! It looked really weird. A year ago it looks distinctly less weird this year, yeah. So what anything? A blue, your way, um.

Actually the FDA approval really blew me away, because that's really tough, that's a tough thing to get, and it just gives a little more legitimacy. They're super like that. They should be super proud of it. It is not easy to go through that that entire process and like it's just not you need to do its lab, it adds more legitimacy, could see entire time. I was looking at that presentation.

I was like how am I going to test that courtesy of this? How am I going to exact same thing like how am I gonna? Do that so, like you know if the FDA approves it, that's a strict and rigorous process. It makes me more inclined to trust them Wow, because I'm skeptical I'll figure it out. They've literally said that this was the only consumer EKG on the market, and I was like how are we going to know if this thing works, because we won't have anything to test it against supposed to go to a doctor's office right yeah? So you know that's that's the thing, so you have to your approval that really for me anything impressive today, tall um, all right. You know what I'm impressed by I'm impressed by my own sort of dead fast commitment to Apple, because I knew I was going to buy whatever new phone they announced, and I was really hoping for something that was going to blow me away and, to be honest, I'm not blown away, but I'm still going to buy it yeah. How does the story about them? Yeah, right there and I, don't think, there's any better place to end it.

So that's that's pretty much everything you need to know. You should come back to PC Magazine after we actually have these units, and we can test them and give you more details and find out how they actually perform, but I think that's the bottom line here, which is if your phone's new years old yeah, if you have I, would say, don't upgrade from an iPhone 8. If you have a 7s or older, then yeah think about upgrading yeah. Oh sorry, no well also Sasha Began is there. He is in Cupertino right now he's getting hands-on with all the phones, so we will have his first thoughts.

His photos, his videos, his impressions. Probably later today early tomorrow morning- and he always has an interesting take ? indeed he's literally going into hands-on mode he's been doing it for about an hour now and another two or three hours, he'll have four hands on the ribbon. We will get those up on the website as soon as possible. You could enjoy them there. Alright guys this has been Greg yeah,, thanks.

So much for joining us, we'll be back tomorrow, tune in tomorrow for one cool thing, ten o'clock comes right here: different set.

Source : PCMag