Dutch repair site FixjeiPhone today shared a teardown of the iPhone XS, providing us with our first look inside the 5.8-inch model.
A side-by-side comparison shot with the iPhone X reveals that the internal layout of the iPhone XS has not changed significantly, with the most obvious difference being a new single-cell L-shaped battery with a capacity of 2,658 mAh.
The battery was also L-shaped in the iPhone X, but it was a two-cell configuration, instead of a single lithium-ion battery pack.
While the iPhone XS's battery has around 2.2 percent less capacity than the 2,716 mAh battery in the iPhone X, Apple says the iPhone XS gets up to 30 minutes longer battery life than the iPhone X per charge cycle, presumably due to efficiency gains from the A12 Bionic chip and other components.
FixjeiPhone shared a photo of the iPhone XS almost completely disassembled, but it has not labeled any components or manufacturers.
Their video teardown, which can be watched with English subtitles on YouTube, indicates that the display is a bit harder to remove due to stronger seals that help the iPhone XS achieve its improved IP68-rated water resistance.
Repair site iFixit should have more detailed iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max teardowns soon after the devices launch in stores tomorrow.
Thursday December 11, 2025 8:49 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon.
Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week.
iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
Wednesday December 10, 2025 2:52 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Google Maps on iOS quietly gained a new feature recently that automatically recognizes where you've parked your vehicle and saves the location for you.
Announced on LinkedIn by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps' senior product manager, the new feature auto-detects your parked location even if you don't use the parking pin function, saves it for up to 48 hours, and then automatically removes it once...
Thursday December 11, 2025 11:28 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released new firmware designed for the AirPods Pro 3 and the prior-generation AirPods Pro 2. The AirPods Pro 3 firmware is 8B30, up from 8B25, while the AirPods Pro 2 firmware is 8B28, up from 8B21.
There's no word on what's include in the updated firmware, but the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3 are getting expanded support for Live Translation in the European Union in iOS...
Friday December 12, 2025 10:56 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28.
The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
Apple has ordered 22 million OLED panels from Samsung Display for the first foldable iPhone, signaling a significantly larger production target than the display industry had previously anticipated, ET News reports.
In the now-seemingly deleted report, ET News claimed that Samsung plans to mass-produce 11 million inward-folding OLED displays for Apple next year, as well as 11 million...
Thursday December 11, 2025 10:31 am PST by Juli Clover
The AirTag 2 will include a handful of new features that will improve tracking capabilities, according to a new report from Macworld. The site says that it was able to access an internal build of iOS 26, which includes references to multiple unreleased products.
Here's what's supposedly coming:
An improved pairing process, though no details were provided. AirTag pairing is already...
Friday December 12, 2025 10:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released iOS 26.2, the second major update to the iOS 26 operating system that came out in September, iOS 26.2 comes a little over a month after iOS 26.1 launched. iOS 26.2 is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and later, as well as the second-generation iPhone SE.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones over-the-air by going to Settings >...
Friday December 5, 2025 9:40 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below.
Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the ...
Thursday December 11, 2025 4:02 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple is working on a smart home hub that will rely heavily on the more capable version of Siri that's coming next year. We've heard quite a bit about the hub over the last two years, but a recent iOS 26 code leak provides additional insight into what we can expect and confirms rumored features.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
Macworld claims to have access to an ...
So... Except for the CPU upgrade, the Xs is last year's technology and design. Can someone please explain to me why the price of the phone hasn't gotten cheaper?
Yeah, it's just simple basic business. The actual term we use is "economics".
Price doesn't directly correlate to cost.
Cost is how much you need to spend to build and bring to market. Price is how much the end user will pay.
So... Except for the CPU upgrade, the Xs is last year's technology and design. Can someone please explain to me why the price of the phone hasn't gotten cheaper?
There's a whole plethora of small upgrades on the XS, including a RAM bump, better waterproofing, faster LTE chip, better speakers and mics, bigger camera sensor, stronger cover glass, faster Face ID, not to mention all the ongoing software/services/security development, most of which comes included in the price of the phone but is absolutely not free to produce. In what world does that necessitate a price drop? By all means, go complain on the Mac Pro thread about old tech not being discounted enough, but doing it here just makes you look ignorant.
Over the last few years, Apple managed to create a device that slows down large scale IP theft from Chinese and Korean hack shops. Huawei and Samsung can steal 7nm chip schematics all they want. But when you have 4low-2high cores, a neural engine, and the rest of the chip tailored specifically to your OS and hardware, that's much much harder to thief and replicate.
