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By Jason Snell for Tom's Guide
Here’s the One iPhone XS Feature That Justifies an Upgrade
It’s hard to sell people on a new iPhone every year. The fact is, most people don’t buy a new iPhone every year, but the tech journalists who write about any new product will invariably compare it to the previous-generation model, when the truth is that most people who buy an iPhone XS will be upgrading from the iPhone 6, 6S or 7, not last year’s iPhone 8 and X.
Sometimes the leaps forward are easy to see: Last year’s iPhone X was one such leap. But this year’s models are a bit more iterative, so Apple has to focus in on a few specific improvements in order to continue maintaining the important perception that the entire platform is moving forward in exciting ways.
While the A12 processor powering the iPhone XS is certainly impressive, just saying a phone is a bit faster is not going to make people too excited. So Apple has become very good at highlighting its prowess in making chips and writing software to drive those chips through the lens of new features. And what better features to improve than those around perhaps the single most important feature, the camera?
As an iPhone X user for the past year, the one feature that would make me pay to upgrade to the XS is the improved camera. The camera on the iPhone XS is a major step forward for Apple. But don’t be fooled: the feature that Apple spends the most time on isn’t the killer feature.