iPhone 12: everything you need to know about Apple’s new flagship

Dominik Bärlocher

13.10.2020

Four new iPhones, two of them with lasers, all of them with 5G. This is the new iPhone 12. MagSafe is also a thing. And there’s the HomePod.

Finally. The new iPhone is here. CEO Tim Cook has just presented the new Apple smartphone in a pre-recorded keynote. The grass may be more feature-rich on the Android side, and the words «best ever» may have been uttered one too many times. Still, the iPhone looks promising. So, Reddit user u/vada_pongal created a game of keynote Bingo so you can play along.

Let’s quickly get one thing out of the way: the smooth, flat edges of the new iPhone can really only be described as «beautiful». Becasue angular edges don’t just look nice; they also make for great grip. A rule of thumb: how a phone feels in your hand is way more important than the display size. And flat edges are the clear winner there.

The biggest, the smallest… the best?

Apple has reworked its iPhone portfolio of the years. Back in the day, there was just «the iPhone». Then came the «the iPhone and the iPhone Plus» and after that, «the iPhone, iPhone Pro and iPhone Pro Max». Now, the iPhone 12 brings us even more options:

1. iPhone 12 with a 5.4-inch display → iPhone 12 Mini, same specs as the big iPhone, just smaller.
2. iPhone 12 with a 6.1-inch display → The standard iPhone, with thinner bezels.
3. iPhone 12 Pro with a 6.1-inch display → Bigger, one extra camera, also available in blue, up top 4x optical zoom.
4. iPhone 12 Pro Max with a 6.7-inch display → The biggest iPhone yet.

It looks like Apple is not just further developing its sofware, but trying to reach untapped markets by covering as many needs and wants as possible. They’re moving away from the «here, iPhone – now sink or swim» mentality. The new iPhone SE, which targets a younger audience in marketing, also supports this idea. But, in general, it’s an iPhone for everyone who doesn’t want to drop 1,000 bucks on a phone.

In addition, there’s the new OLED display Apple is calling Retina Display XDR, which is supposed to have «double the pixels». The display glass is newly called Ceramic Shield and is produced by Corning. The load of marketing bull amounts to the iPhone supposedly being able to take four times the punishment before finally disintegrating. Apple claims this is the biggest improvement yet in stability.

I can update the iPhone index as soon as final pricing is known for Switzerland. At the moment, sales are expected to start on Friday, 16 October 2020. Prices in the USA are known but, unlike in Switzerland, don’t include value-added tax. So, any information on pricing is currently just a ballpark and may drastically change.

The laser-equipped camera

There was a time when Time-of-Flight (ToF) was considered the gold standard for depth measurement in cameras. That turned out to be but an intermediary step, given Apple’s tendency to set the standards in any given industry. So, Apple has equipped the iPhones with three cameras and a depth sensor that uses lasers. It’s supposed to not only improve picture quality in terms of depth of field – known as Bokeh – but also help with the augmented reality features.

Here’s where the whole thing about standards gets a little weird. Augmented reality hasn’t yet really gained a foothold, despite Apple pushing the feature for a few iPhone generations by now. It can certainly be useful. For example: you want to buy an Ikea closet – probably called Hörpendörpen, or something – for your apartment. You could then point your camera at a corner of your room via the Ikea app, and you’d see the closet standing in said corner on your screen. Aside from that, it could be fun in games. Apple likes to use this idea in their marketing every now and then, but it will be a while before AR gaming actually takes hold in this form.

My reading of tea leaves actually ended up being correct – the Apple iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro Max both have lasers that measure the depth in pictures.

Video recording in night mode is also supposed to be better. The demo filmed in Las Vegas doesn’t look bad. But another thing was noticeable: it didn’t include the original audio. Smartphones, in general, do tend to bite the dust when it comes to audio.

The iPhone 12 Pro and, later on, the Pro Max, can do something or another with RAW images. Native RAW support? Yessss! Hopefully that means I can export the files in RAW format instead of being forced to rely on machine intelligence.

«Hi, Speed» – Processor or 5G?

The new iPhones are equipped with the new A14 Bionic Chip. That’s supposed to make them even faster. Just how fast the A14 Bionic is, exactly, has not been revealed by official sources. In the launch video from Cupertino, they just say it’s 50% faster. As lovely as that sounds, I would like to see an absolute number one of these days. Just once every five years would do. Because «15% faster» here and «48% faster» there doesn’t really lead to anywhere useful. I dare assume that even today’s average user has some understanding of the terms «hexa-core» or «6 GB RAM».

There is one concrete number in addition to «11 trillion operations per second»: the A14 is built with a 5-nanometer manufacturing process. The current standard is 7 nm – which is already astonishingly good – but does require just a tad more energy than a 5 nm chip. Energy efficient as the 5 nm may be, any energy savings no doubt get used up by other features. Namely, 5G.

Notably: the A14 chip is a 5G platform. With it, Apple is taking a huge step forward and putting serious pressure on the mobile service providers of the world. These have been dragging their feet in certain countries when it comes to expanding the 5G network, depite it offering several times the speed of 4G LTE, the current top standard.

• 4G LTE: max. 300 megabits per second, i.e. 37.5 megabytes per second
• 5G: max. 10 gigabits per second, i.e. 1250 megabytes per second

This could be the breakthrough for 5G network expansion, which has been rather sluggish. Precisely because Apple sets standards; others experiment. Tim Cook says 5G is the standard of the decade. He’s right. Now the mobile service providers just need to catch up.

One more thing… actually, several more things

• The HomePod Mini is new. The thing no longer looks like a toilet paper roll; instead, it’s more ball-shaped. The competitor to Alexa is not only supposed to bring Siri into your home, but also provide good sound quality.
• The HomePod can now exchange data and requests with Apple CarPlay and other Apple devices.
• The HomePod costs 99 dollars in the USA, excluding VAT.
• League of Legends is coming to the iPhone.
• The iPhone’s wireless charging has been drastically improved thanks to a magnetic accessory called MagSafe – it’s made the wireless charging inductor bigger.
• No charger. Nowhere in sight. The reason: environmentalism. Whoop.
• The iPhone in Pacific Blue looks freaking awesome.

«When will the iPhone be available for purchase?»

This sure worked well last time when I wrote something along the lines of «Don’t bother asking, the information will come when it comes.» So, here’s when sales start:

• The iPhone 12 Mini: preorders from 6 November 2020, sales start 13 November 2020
• The iPhone 12: preorders from 16 October 2020, sales start 23 October 2020
• The iPhone 12 Pro: preorders from 16 October 2020, sales start 23 October 2020
• The iPhone 12 Pro Max: preorders from 6 November 2020, sales start 13 November 2020

It’s possible that digitec will cook up some sort of plan here, though. So, stay tuned.

Dominik Bärlocher

Senior Editor

dominik.baerlocher@digitecgalaxus.ch

Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.