iPhone XR: Apple’s Phil Schiller reveals what ‘R’ stands for

Apple iPhone XR, touted as the affordable iPhone, will go on sale globally including India on September 26. iPhone XR differentiates from the iPhone XS series with a Liquid Retina display and a metal body in vibrant colours. But why iPhone XR is called XR? What R means, anyway?

Turns out, the letter R doesn't really mean anything significant for Apple. Phil Schiller, SVP of global marketing for Apple confirmed this in an interview with Engadget. However, for Schiller the letters do have special meanings.

"I love cars and things go fast, and R and S are both letters used to denote sports cars that are extra special", Schiller told Engadget. Companies like Porsche, Audi and Mercedes Benz have S and R series of cars which belong to the most premium category.

Not just the iPhone XR, the iPhone XS and XS Max too don't have any story behind the nomenclature. This was not the case with the older iPhones where Apple had dedicated reasons for naming its iPhones. Back then, iPhone 3GS stood for speed, while the 'S' in iPhone 4S was to highlight Apple's digital assistant Siri.

Moving on, the later 'S' models of iPhones were generally understood to be upgraded variants. There are still guesses and assumptions on the meaning behind iPhone names. For example, iPhone 5S is said to stand for security since Apple introduced its Touch ID paving the way for fingerprint sensors.

The iPhone SE, however, which was launched in March stands for Special Edition. iPhone SE comes wrapped in an iPhone 5S body but with the internals of the iPhone 6.