iPhone XS and iPhone XR Smart Battery Cases

Apple's long rumored/leaked Smart Battery Cases for iPhone XS and iPhone XR have finally been made available for purchase. These cases are special because they integrate into iOS really well. Their battery is displayed in the widgets section. In addition, Smart Battery Cases are designed with wireless charging in mind. They are available from Apple's site for $129. By the way, they are not fully compatible with the iPhone X due to some minor differences between the iPhone X and iPhone XS.

Apple's Slow Realization

With all of the news of Apple's stock price falling, it's important to address the issues of Apple, something I do often as of late. It's obvious why there's a sudden decline. Apple went from the first trillion dollar company to an uncertain, volatile stock symbol. Between Qualcomm, product delays, and the constant chatter of iPhone sales, investors can't sell fast enough. There are other factors I'm likely leaving out, but the iPhone sales are most important. iPhone has been carrying Apple for the past several years. The Mac lineup has been long neglected by Apple, so hearing that the product Apple puts most of its resources into is flopping is not good news. There was a clear lack of innovation. Right now, name one feature that the iPhone XS has that the iPhone X doesn't. Not counting minor upgrades, it's very hard to do. Apple has a lot of cleaning up to do in 2019, so they'd better make it count. They can't afford to wait for 2020 to knock one out of the park.

Verizon Now Supports eSIM

Verizon now supports eSIM, which means you can have a Verizon plan without the need for a physical SIM card. This can be useful for those traveling to the United States frequently or those who have a second phone number with Verizon. Verizon's adoption of eSIM is important for eSIM as a whole. Hopefully, more carriers begin adopting it. Currently, this is only limited to non-Verizon customers who want an eSIM from Verizon. The only iPhones that can support eSIM are iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR.

Smartphones Outpacing Lithium-Ion Technology

Lithium-ion batteries are the life-force of most portable devices today. They made alkaline batteries (AA, AAA, etc.) nearly obsolete. Why find a C battery for your flashlight when you can just use your iPhone? According to the The Washington Post, smartphone technology may be advancing too fast for lithium-ion batteries, which brings into question whether an alternative should be used soon. The iPhone XS was ranked a worse battery than the iPhone X. The full chart is below. Take note of the color of the bars. Gray bars represent 2017 phones while blue bars represent 2018 phones.

iPhone Emoji Will Be Updated

If you hate the mainstream nature of emojis as much as I do, you'll likely find yourself slowly zoning out scrolling through articles about how Apple is adding an additional 20 million emojis with each update. However, buried in the pile of new emojis is a small detail being added to an existing emoji. The iPhone emoji is currently an iPhone 8, however, in iOS 12.1, Apple will be updating it to an iPhone X-style model [Source: MacRumors]. Given the radical change in design, this is another step to say that this design is the future, which I think is a nice touch. Take a look at the change below.

Image Credit: MacRumors

Some iPhone XS Devices Suffering from Charging Issue

There is truly nothing more annoying than waking up and realizing your device wasn't charging. Now, some users are reporting that their iPhone XS devices aren't charging until they tap the screen [Source: MacRumors]. There are several variants of symptoms experienced by users, but the main issue is that iPhone XS devices aren't charging despite being plugged in. Tapping the screen or replugging the Lightning cable seems to be the quick fix, but it's certainly not the best solution. Hopefully Apple patches this out soon.

eSIM in iPhone XS

One of the features introduced with the iPhone XS was eSIM. eSIM is somewhat similar to Apple SIM on cellular-enabled iPads. However, it's specific purpose is to allow iPhone users to have two numbers on their one iPhone. What good is this for? The most realistic case is that you frequently travel to another country and have a dedicated plan and phone number in that country. With eSIM, you could have one iPhone and receive phone calls from both numbers. You also can use a local data plan while in another country with eSIM. Currently, there are only a handful of carriers around the world that support eSIM, but it will sooner or later catch up. While iPhone isn't the first one to implement an eSIM, it's another big push to get more carriers on board.

iPhone XS Guides Reference AirPower

In a time where the state of AirPower has been more questioned than ever, the charging mat was referenced by name in the iPhone XS manual. Thanks to Gavin Stevens, we have a look at a short excerpt about charging the iPhone.

"Place iPhone with screen facing up on AirPower or a Qi-certified wireless charger. You can also use the Lightning connector to charge iPhone and connect accessories."

While this isn't much to go off of, AirPower is probably still in the works at Apple. Whether it will be released in the near future is a completely different matter. We don't have any idea of when this manual was printed and packed into the iPhone box, so AirPower's fate could have changed by this point. Supposedly, heating issues with the accessory seem to be the blame for its delay.

iPhone X Cases May Not Be Compatible with iPhone XS

While most iPhone X owners won't likely be upgrading to the iPhone XS, it is still good to know that their cases are not compatible with each other [Source: Daring Fireball]. This is because of slightly different camera sizes, by about a millimeter or two. While this change is minimal, it's enough to say the wrong case won't have a perfect fit.

Pre-Orders for the Apple Watch Series 4 and iPhone XS

According to Ming-Chi Kuo (via MacRumors), is stating that Apple Watch Series 4 pre-orders are "better than expected," but also stating that iPhone XS (not iPhone XS Max) pre-orders have been "lower-than expected." This is to be expected, since the Apple Watch Series 4 was seen as the highlight of the event for many, while the iPhone XS did not bring anything new for many. It will be interesting to see how the iPhone XR compares in terms of pre-order sales.

Looking in the Box of the iPhone XS

Apple has a list of items included in the box of the iPhone XS, so let's take a look at what's included. Obviously, you have the phone. Included are the EarPods with Lightning connector. This is pretty standard. As nice as it would be to get a pair of AirPods, I understand that's a bit unreasonable, even for the more expensive models. There is no dongle. I don't think this is entirely to be cheap. But it's likely to make people rely on 3.5mm headphone jacks less. Regardless, I think we're still in an era where they should be included. My real gripe is with the cable and power adapter. It's a USB-A to Lightning cable. A USB-C to Lightning cable would be much better, considering we have wireless chargers and USB-C ports on Macs. The power adapter is only 5W, while wireless chargers compatible with iPhone can go up to 7.5W. These little differences take away from the premium feel of opening up an iPhone. First impressions are everything, and things like a weak (by today's standards) power adapter and EarPods made to look like AirPods are not good first impressions.

Gather Round Event: Quick Thoughts

Today, Apple had their annual iPhone announcement event. Pretty much everything was leaked this morning or in the weeks prior to today, but let's go over it anyway. One major difference to this year's rumors than previous rumors was the lack of iPhone rumors. We pretty much knew there would be three models, one an 6.1-inch LCD in multiple colors and the other two being different sized OLED models. We also knew their names, the iPhone XS, the iPhone XS Max, and the iPhone XR (Marketing team really burned the midnight oil on these ones). Other than that, we didn't know much. And that's because there was nothing else to say. There is next to nothing new with the iPhones other than "this is faster" and "this is 50% better" or "this lasts 30 minutes longer than the iPhone X." The only purpose of this generation of iPhone is to make a bigger iPhone X and a cheaper iPhone X, the two biggest requests since the iPhone X came out. You can hear the nervousness in the speakers' voices, because they were stretching an event that should have been 45 minutes tops into 2 hours. "Look at this photo! Doesn't it look great?" Like, yeah, but you said that last year. There's nothing groundbreaking. "We have three developers to lengthen the show!" "I'd like to invite up John Appleseed to reiterate exactly what I just said." It was painfully slow at times. And I know this is an "S" update, but even the iPhone 6s had Live Photos and 3D Touch. The iPhone 5s had Touch ID. All models still start at 64 GB, which seemed weird for me. I feel like the higher end models should have started at 128 GB, especially with the decline in SSD prices in the past few months. By far, the most surprising part of the entire keynote was Todd Howard coming on stage, even if what he was showing off wasn't groundbreaking either.

Let's talk about the Apple Watch. This was definitely the highlight of the show, even if we knew about it due to leaks. That one leak was probably the best we've seen it and the rest of the images we saw didn't really do it justice, so I'll have to see it in person when it comes out. I am long overdue for an upgrade from my Apple Watch Series 0 and this is an Apple Watch worthy to upgrade to. That ECG/EKG (they're the same thing) looks really cool. The focus on health is a huge selling point. You could tell the speakers were catering this model towards Series 0 and Series 1 owners, because they listed every feature to come out since Series 1 at the end of the Apple Watch section. It would've been nice if cellular came standard on the Series 4, but I can't really complain about that. The option of cellular just confuses me, because that was what defined Series 3, even though it was optional there too. The Series 4 is definitely on the pricier side, so when you throw in all of these optional features, it feels like you're at a car dealer.

We got nothing on AirPower, which we now have reason to believe has been delayed further. We literally only got updates to the iPhone and Apple Watch. Some minor news includes the iPhone X, the iPhone SE, the iPhone 6s, and the Apple Watch Series 1 being discontinued.

6.5-inch iPhone Xs Max

After rumors of having trouble picking a name, it seems that Apple has decided on calling the larger iPhone Xs, the iPhone Xs Max [Source: 9to5Mac]. I think Apple is already regretting the change to Roman numerals. Max is a strange departure from the Plus we've known for so long now. The fact that it's pronounced "iPhone 10s Max" makes it even more confusing. It's hard to believe that someone had the job of naming this device and we got "iPhone Xs Max." I guess it worked, since I'm talking about it.

Huge iPhone and Apple Watch Leak

Today, I was very surprised to see leaks of the iPhone XS and the Apple Watch Series 4. I really didn't want to see them, because I like genuine surprise, but these images have been plastered all over the internet. I'm also plan on getting an Apple Watch Series 4, so I was hoping to be floored by its design at the event, not because of a leak. I won't be embedding the images in this post just in case, especially when you can find them anywhere on the internet, but I'll leave links to them for those curious. Here are my thoughts on the leaked devices.

9to5Mac reported on what appears to be gold iPhone X-like devices that come in two sizes. The image is breathtaking. It almost looks holographic. There isn't much else to say here, because it just looks like a regular iPhone X aside from the gold color and size options. They also report that the name for it is iPhone XS.

9to5Mac later showed a leaked image of the Apple Watch Series 4. As an original Apple Watch owner, I've been holding out for this one. I've been so tempted to upgrade, but I knew this would be the one to floor me. I've been waiting for a redesign, and now is the perfect time with watchOS 5 being restricted to Series 1 and later. The edge-to-edge display looks great, and the image shows how much can fit just on the watch face. I'm really glad they showcased the analog watch face. I use an analog watch face, and I find it's always find that Apple supports the digital ones way more. It's nice to see they haven't forgotten the traditional analog watch. It appears to hold up to nine complications. That's a lot of information at a quick glance. I personally want mine with Weather, Timer, iStudiez Pro (class tracking), and MyVerizon (data usage) complications in the corners, Calendar around the rim, and Music, date, Activity (unless I find something better), and battery level in the center. Along with cellular, water-resistance, GPS, improved battery and faster processor coming from my Series 0, I'm hoping we get at least one big new software feature. Overall, I'm really excited for this model, but I still wish it hadn't been leaked.