Is iPhone XS Apple’s worst ‘S’ phone? Catch the conversation this week on The CultCast

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iPhone XS—how's it stack up?

This week on The CultCast: Is iPhone XS the worst Apple “S” phone of all time? We compare the XS to Apple’s other flagship “S” releases. Plus: We round up what reviewers are saying about iPhone XS and Apple Watch 4; reveal which Apple Watch feature is giving people a serious case of FOMO; and discuss a leaked detail in iOS 12.1 that all but confirms a new iPad event this fall.

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Episode

CultCast #354 – Is iPhone XS Apple’s worst “S” phone?

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First iPhone XS and XS Max reviews: Great phone, but not revolutionary

  • Early reviews for the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max have already come in and while most of the people that have tested the new device are impressed, this year’s models aren’t as big a leap as the iPhone X.

Apple Watch Series 4 reviews: The watch of the future is here today

  • The indedpent called the series 4 watch “Astonishingly good”!
  • The Verge and the NYT both raved about how great the new larger display looked. Particularly with the rounded corners, and made it much more apt to looking at photos and using apps.
  • The Watch felt snappier than the gen 3, but The Verge noted that the imrpovement wasn’t as drastic as Gen 2 to Gen 3.

Hot new Apple Watch feature gives wearers a serious dose of FOMO

  • FOMO: anxiety that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on a social media website.
  • The new Walkie-Talkie app is being lauded by Apple Watch owners as the best new feature that came out as part of watchOS 5. But for some wearers there’s a serious problem: they can’t find anyone to talk to.
  • Walkie-Talkie gives wearers the ability to turn their wrist into a sort of digital two-way radio transceiver with other Apple Watch wearers. It’s a super-convenient way to have short bursts of conversation when you don’t want to talk on the phone. If you don’t have any friends with an Apple WAtch though then there’s no way to get in on the action.

iOS 12.1 confirms new iPads are on the way

  • Apple released the first beta of iOS 12.1 today. Developer Guilherme Rambo went digging around in the code and turned up a mention of “iPad2018Fall.” Sometimes references to upcoming devices hidden in iOS betas are obscure, but not this time
  • He also found a glyph of the iPad that showed it will have FaceId, but will not have a notch.
  • While digging into the simulator for iOS 12.1, Steve Troughton-Smith discovered that Apple has added support for virtualized 4K external displays. That’s a big deal for two reasons: 1) It means you’re going to be able to hook up iPads to 4K monitors, 2) It’s not currently possible to do that through the Lightning HDMI adapter.

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