As iPhone’s fans in South Africa wait in anticipation for the official release of the new generation of iPhone X next month, the continuous weakening of the rand – most notably against the US dollar at the weekend – makes it the best timing to finally get themselves the now-defunct iPhone X if they hadn’t done so, informs Apple X Doctor co-founder Sean Joffe.
“The significant weakening of exchange rate is going to make the next generation of iPhone X significantly more expensive than its predecessor,” Joffe told Business Insider South Africa in a recent interview.
While Apple is no longer offering the iPhone X, following its removal from the firm’s website last week (September 12) – along with the iPhone SE and iPhone 6S – it is still available from a number of retailers country-wide at around R17 000, with major operators preparing to flush out unsold iPhone X inventory ahead of the new models’ availability resulting in some great deals.
Last Wednesday, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed news of the release of the iDevice trio, which had for some time become tech media fodder following a number of leaks in the build-up to the much-hyped ‘Rather Round’ launch event. Hardcore Apple fans should know by now that both the iPhone XS (the direct successor to last year’s iPhone X) and XS Max (successor of the Plus-branded models) pack 5.8-inch and 6.5-inch OLED screens respectively, while the low-end XR comes with a 6.1-inch LCD liquid retina screen.
Both the XS (pronounced “Ten-S) and XS Max come with up to a whopping 512 GB of storage, double the amount of iPhone X. All three models will be the first to feature the powerful A12 Bionic, industry’s first commercial 7nm processor, which promises a 15-percent performance boost compared to last year’s A11 chip. The latest models pack a dual 12MP camera with a larger sensor than that of the iPhone X and they all support HDR (high dynamic range) streaming from the likes of Amazon and Netflix.
The front camera packs a 7MP true-depth camera with the sensor “twice as far as before,” with photos potentially coming out clearer due to the devices’ speed. While the XR camera only has single wide angle lens as compared to dual-lens for both XS and XS Max, all three models are equipped with advanced portrait mode, making it possible to shoot professional-like portraits with a shallow depth of field.
It’s also worth mentioning that all three iPhones are water resistant for up to 30 minutes. This means you can shoot out in the rain, and take stunning water stills without worrying that your phone will be damaged if it gets wet. When coming to battery life, its makers promise that the XS will last 30 minutes longer than the iPhone X, while the XS Max will deliver an extra hour and a half.
The release date for iPhone XS
XS and XS Max are now available to pre-order, with shipping in the major US and European retailers beginning as early as September 21. As the time of going to press, all variants of the iPhone XS Max, as anticipated, were already sold out on the Apple website, while the XS seemed to be going slower than expected. Pre-orders of the XR will debut a month later, on October 26.
Price for iPhone XS
The XS will be priced from $999 for the 64 GB to $1,349 for the 512GB. The XS Max will be available in 64GB at $1099, while the 512 GB will cost a whopping $1,499. The iPhone XR’s storage options are 64 GB, 128 GB and 256 GB with the price starting as low as $749.
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