October 13, Apple unveiled the iPhone 12 lineup. The Mini, Standard, Pro, and Pro Max. I was honestly, given the conservative nature of Apple’s adoption of new technologies, that they added 5G service to all of the devices. I was equally surprised that given their liberal stances on employment policies, they spent a lot of the keynote with a union busting company like Verizon touting their useless mmWave 5G.
5G
5G is an interesting package of technologies, the most interesting of which, is unlikely to actually be useful to most people. 5G is still a wireless technology, which is susceptible to easy interference and wastes a lot of power. We haven’t even gotten close to saturating LTE/4G, and given the lower frequencies that 4G work on, it may continue to be more reliable for decades to come. Copper and Fiber connections are still the best for most applications, and will be for the foreseeable future.
MagSafe
I was quite surprise to see Apple resurrect the MagSafe brand for their update to the Qi system on their devices. One hopes that they would actually be smart and provide the specs to Qi, and see the entire industry adopt it as a standard not only for charging, but for the accessories as well. I have been using a magnetic mount for my iPhone since 2016, adding charging will be great, for those with Bluetooth CarPlay (or Android Auto) compatibility. I also love the idea of using MagSafe for the cases, which in theory means that they don’t have to be skin tight on the phones, and perhaps much easier to swap between.
Cameras
I not a huge camera person, but I can certainly understand that some of the camera upgrades are positive, and one, the telephoto lens on the Pro is, meh. LIDAR coupled with the new camera arrays on the Pro may bring some very interesting new abilities to the phone. The new low-light and night-mode options will certainly help to bring the iPhone back to being the best casual shooter.
Accessories
I can totally understand Apple’s desire to ditch the EarPods from the iPhone box. I seem to be the only person on the planet who loves them, mainly because they are the only headphones that actually work reliably in my ears. But most people I know, either have a Bluetooth headset they prefer, or other headphones/earbuds, that they seem to like better. I can also understand the desire to not include a power brick, since USB is basically everywhere… however they give you a USB-C to Lightning cable. Yes USB-C is the future, but very few people have it available, except on their Mac, provided they bought a new on in the last 5 years (I’m still rocking a 2011 iMac and a 2012 MacBook Pro Retina). I do love that Apple is basically encouraging people to buy USB-C bricks… I’m just waiting for everyone to complain that the crappy, 3rd-party USB-C brick either charges too slowly, gets too hot, or catches on fire, then they’ll blame Apple.
Conclusion
The iPhone 12 is honestly a minor upgrade for anyone with an iPhone X or newer, aside from the faster processor, or if you need a better camera. 5G is not the killer feature, yet, and not worth the upgrade. However, if you are in the market for a new phone, most people with be happiest with the iPhone 12 Mini or iPhone 12.