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This week: is iPhone Xs the worst Apple "s" phone of all time?  We’ll compare Xs to Apple’s other “s” releases.  Plus: we’ll run through what the early reviewers are saying about iPhone Xs and Apple Watch 4, and which one Apple Watch feature is giving people a serious case of FOMO.  And a leaked detail in iOS 12.1 all but confirms a new iPad event this fall—we’ll tell you what we know.   This episode supported by   Casper makes the internet’s favorite mattress.  Learn why at Casper.com/cultcast, and use code "CultCast" at checkout for $50 off select mattress purchases.   CultCloth will keep your iPhone X, Apple Watch, Mac and iPad sparkling clean, and for a limited time use code CULTCAST at checkout to score a free CleanCloth with any order at CultCloth.co.   Thanks to Kevin McLeodfor the music you hear on today’s episode.     On the show this week @erfon / @lkahney / @lewiswallace   iPhone 3GS = drastically faster data iPhone 4S = Siri iPhone 5S = Touch ID iPhone 6S = 3D Touch iPhone 10s = ?     First iPhone XS and XS Max reviews: Great phone, but not revolutionary https://www.cultofmac.com/577203/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 impresssed, this years models aren’t as big a leap as the iPhone X.

  FaceID

• Panzarino for Techrunch: “As far as Face ID goes, there has been no perceivable difference for me in speed or number of positives… There is also supposed to be improvements in off-angle recognition of your face, say when lying down or when your phone is flat on a desk. I tried a lot of different positions here and could never really definitively say that iPhone XS was better in this regardit… it very likely takes training time to get it near the confidence levels that my iPhone X has stored away.”

  Battery Life

• Nilay Patel for The Verge: "I got a full 12 hours of battery life out of the XS Max without low power mode, and that’s even under my heavy daily use.   The smaller XS is rated to get 30 minutes more than the X, which has run for about 8 hours for me this past year. It’s solid."

  XS Max Screen is glorious

• NYT: "The XS Max screen was so good-looking that I wanted to keep reading articles and looking at photos on Instagram. When I used Apple’s new Screen Time feature to monitor my use of each device, I discovered that I spent an average of roughly five and a half hours a day on the XS Max, two hours more than on the XS.”

  LTE is noticeably faster

• “On the test Verizon account I used, iPhone XS delivers. I got download speeds of 250 Mbps in New Jersey, versus 170 Mbps using the same SIM in the iPhone X.

  The camera has some impressive improvements

• In his compre