Keep in mind that the iPhone XR launched on 10/26, a month after the iPhone XS on 9/21.

What Greg Joswiak says is likely true, but you have to account for the fact that peak demand for the XS has already passed by the time the XR is launched, so total XS sales to date could still be more.

Good point! I (perhaps baselessly) think the XR has been the most popular phone, but there's an iPhone-wide softening in demand.

And nearly 40% of XS in total were sold during the period where XR were not available. So XR being the most popular phone doesn't paint an accurate whole picture.

I'm wary of these type of claims by Apple. They seem carefully craft such claims to be factual in some twisted sense but not reflective of actual state of things. For example, at every announcement they have claimed that their customer satisfaction is 96%. This is very hard to believe despite of battery gate, headphone jack removal etc. Almost every release they say they broke record which is technically true but they don't mention that this was usual fanboy rush that quiets down within a week, sometime in just couple of days.

> at every announcement they have claimed that their customer satisfaction is 96%. This is very hard to believe despite of battery gate, headphone jack removal etc.

I think you’re failing to account for the fact that most people just use their phones and enjoy them as long as they work and do what they want it to do. The “gates” and outrage you mention comes from a small and vocal portion of Apple’s customers.

>I'm wary of these type of claims by Apple

Really? Typically it's all the claims by the press pundits (X not selling, Apple losing Y country, etc) that are proven invariably BS after each quarter results conference.

Well, the XR sales claims are BS...

https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/01/08/the-wsj-calling-t...

It may mean “we just sold one of each and two of the XR” and it would still be true...