In what is perhaps the least surprising, and perhaps earliest piece of information about next year’s iPhones, well known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has been quoted by the Taiwanese publication Economic Daily News as saying that the next round of iPhones will continue the current IP68 rating trend.
The current iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are both water resistant with a rating of IP68. That allows them to be submerged in water at a depth of up to two meters for up to 30 minutes without suffering any ill effects – at least in theory – Apple is always unlikely to honor warranty claims on water-damaged devices. According to Kuo, the 2019 iPhones will also carry an IP68 water resistance, rather than improve on the 2018 models, saying “the new iPhone waterproof specifications will remain unchanged next year,” according to the report.
While IP68 is currently the highest rating achievable by an iPhone, there is wiggle room for Apple to say that its next phones could resist water at a deeper depth and thus, higher pressure. However, Kuo says that this will not be the case.
Of course, whether this really matters to anyone is debatable. We’ve seen people testing iPhones under water since before they were officially water resistant, and as we mentioned earlier, even if Apple rated its iPhones as water resistant to 50 meters in depth, we very much doubt it would stand behind that claim when it came to claiming for warranty against a waterlogged iPhone.
There will, of course, be many more leaks about the 2019 iPhones in due course, but with the 2018 iPhones just weeks old, this is apparently the best we have right now.
(Source: Economic Daily News [Google Translate])
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