Tech giant, Apple, unveils new gadgets at California bash, including the iPhone XS and Apple Watch with range of health features.
CEO Tim Cook showed off the Apple XS, which has a bigger screen than the one on last year’s dramatically designed model, the iPhone X.
The iPhone XS Max has a 6.5in (16.5cm) display. The iPhone XS has the same 5.8in-sized component as the original. The iPhone XR’s screen is 6.1in but is lower quality. A new smartwatch was also launched with an added fall-detection function.
As with the iPhone X, the new phone has a screen that runs from edge to edge, an effort to maximize the display without making the phone too awkward to hold. The screen needs no backlight, so black would appear as truly black rather than simply dark.
This even-bigger iPhone represents Apple’s attempt to feed consumers’ appetite for increasingly larger screens as they rely on smartphones to watch and record video, as well as take photos wherever they are.
There had been concerns that the relatively high entry price of iPhone X would limit its appeal. iPhones fetched an average price of US$724 (NZ$1100) during the April-June period, a nearly 20 per cent increase from a year earlier.
But Apple said it had consistently proven more popular than either of the lower-priced iPhone 8 models. Market research firms suggest it also outsold rival companies’ flagship devices.
That helped propel Apple to become the world’s first company with a market capitalisation above U$1tn.
However, China’s Huawei still managed to overtake it in terms of overall smartphone market share in the April-to-June quarter, putting Apple into third place.
“Huawei was able to overtake it because Apple is not playing in the mid and low ends of the market,” commented Francisco Jeronimo from IDC told the BBC.
“But Apple is very well positioned in the premium segment, and we don’t expect that to change over the next 18 months.”
