iPhone XS and XS Max review: terrific display, great speakers, and long battery life, but expensive, very good camera but not great, portrait mode a hit or miss
Solid updates to a winning formula — Last year, Apple did something out of character: it introduced the usual update to the iPhone …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Verge's verdict on the XS generation lands mid-arc in its long-running iPhone review series: back in the iPhone 6s review the same publication was grading a 3D Touch feature cycle, and by 2021 it would be scoring the iPhone 13 Pro on high-refresh displays and Cinematic Mode. The XS/XS Max sits in between as a classic refinement year — better display, speakers, and battery, with the camera judged very good rather than great.
What makes this review consequential is what Apple shipped a month later: the iPhone XR, which pairs the same processor and cameras with a lower price and a weaker display. The XS line's steep pricing created the opening for that cheaper sibling.
First-order effects
- Buyers deciding on a new iPhone in late 2018 face a three-way split inside Apple's own lineup: the expensive XS Max with its big display, the standard XS, and the XR arriving weeks later at a competitive price.
- Portrait mode's hit-or-miss results set buyer expectations that the camera upgrade is incremental, not a leap over the previous generation.
Second-order effects
- Apple effectively competes against itself: the XR's combination of the latest processor, good battery life, and lower cost gives price-sensitive customers a reason to skip the XS, pressuring the flagship tier's value proposition.
- Reviewers' framing of 'very good but not great' cameras raises the bar Apple must clear in subsequent S-cycles to justify premium pricing.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, each refinement-year iPhone gets judged less on new features and more on whether the price increase matches the improvement — pushing Apple toward a permanently tiered lineup where a cheaper model absorbs demand the flagship would once have captured.
- The recurring review complaints across generations (battery in the 6s era, price in the XS era, USB-C still absent by the 13 Pro) show hardware iteration converging on a stable checklist that competitors must match rather than redefine.
The trend: Apple's annual iPhone cadence is evolving into a two-track structure — an incrementally improved premium flagship paired with a cheaper sibling that captures the price-sensitive majority.