I didn’t see the announcement myself but what exactly did you see that you wished iPhone would incorporate? From a hardware standpoint I’d say the XS Max is amazing. The S10+ may have a beautiful display and camera but so does the XS Max.
My hopes for iPhone in 2019 don’t come from hardware updates and, quite honestly, I wouldn’t expect any major changes in that regard until at least 2020. I could be wrong though. That said I think Apple has a lot to gain from a software standpoint. I like iOS 12 but at this point the interface is getting a little old. Some new functionality and a design uplift would be a welcomed change at this point.
By the way, I fixed your thread title for you.
The S10+ has a better camera. The dual aperture lens and night mode means that in low light scenarios pictures are more detailed and brighter. Both have a 2x optical zoom telephoto lens so their zoom capabilities are roughly the same. However the S10+ also has an ultra-wide camera, which the iPhone XS doesn’t.
In daylight using the main camera both the XS Max and S10+ are equal/great, with the S10+ having slightly more vivid colours and the XS more natural, so it really depends on your personal taste for colours. But in low light and in terms of versatility the S10+ undoubtedly has the advantage. Selfie wise the S10+ has a 10MP+8MP setup with an f/1.9 aperture compared to the XS Max’s 7MP f/2.2. Both do great selfies but the S10+ has the slight edge.
My hopes for the iPhone XI are mainly a substantially larger battery (at least 3600mAh for 6.5 inch XI and 3100mAh for the 5.8 inch XI), triple lens rear camera, more customisation in iOS 13 and the return of Touch ID in either a side-mounted fingerprint sensor or an in-display one.