With the iPhone XR, we finally have ‘the iPhone’ again

After Wednesday’s Apple event, you’d be forgiven for thinking the iPhone, as a product category, is now horribly fragmented.

We don’t have just one, but three different iPhone models: the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. While the pattern of three choices mirrors what Apple did last year, this year’s event confirmed it wasn’t just a one-off. We should expect releases in triplicate for the foreseeable future.

It’s getting increasingly hard to remember, but there used to be a time when Apple treated the iPhone as a one-size-fits-all product. That hasn’t been the case since 2014, the first year Apple released the iPhone 6 Plus alongside the iPhone 6. Here were two phones, both with state-of-the-art internals, with different form factors. Which was “the iPhone” proper? That was up to personal preference. Read more...