iPhone 12 Pro and Max

https://www.engadget.com/apple-iphone-12-12-pro-review-cameras-5g-performance-price-214630744.html

From Apple's event till now. Whats up with Apple putting so much hype with 5G?
I can understand that its a mobile internet technology that provides insane speed for internet. But this isn't something apple invented or owns.
Not sure what your point is. Advertising 5g as a specification is no different than advertising any other specification.

Do you get annoyed when car manufacturers list heated leather seats, mpg figures, XM satellite radio, Airplay/Android Auto, or aluminum alloy rims? Car manufacturers have zero control (as in ownership of those standards) over any of those things either.

In terms of phones - what do you talk about to distinguish what you have? Basically it's all just specs and/or a list of improvements of phones from a previous generation. It just sounds like 5g isn't interesting to you. Or a sales point that would get you to buy a phone. But I'm sure Apple knows its target audience well enough to know that this will entice most regular people to upgrade their iPhones to next gen if they were on the fence - in comparison with advertising increased contrast, HDR10, Dolby Vision, HLG, higher brightness, new cameras, mag safe, or mag safe accessories.
By 2021 every flagship will have 5G
Could be they want to sell phones this year.
 
Last edited:
Do other 5G phones support multiple bands on 1 model? I haven’t looked much into it recently, but I remember early 5G models were either mmWave or limited to certain midrange bands.
 
Do other 5G phones support multiple bands on 1 model? I haven’t looked much into it recently, but I remember early 5G models were either mmWave or limited to certain midrange bands.
It's a crap shoot. You'll have to do research to see if any exist.
 
For whatever this is worth: I wasn't sure about 120Hz on the Iphone Pro 12 and the Max so I asked Apple and the exact response after several minutes of digging (they weren't sure either) was: "Neither have this capability currently." I am not sure if there is an implication there. There has been some expectation that the Pro phones would be like the new Ipad Pro in that regard.
 
For whatever this is worth: I wasn't sure about 120Hz on the Iphone Pro 12 and the Max so I asked Apple and the exact response after several minutes of digging (they weren't sure either) was: "Neither have this capability currently." I am not sure if there is an implication there. There has been some expectation that the Pro phones would be like the new Ipad Pro in that regard.
There was a lot of rumors-ville surrounding 120Hz or higher refresh displays on the 12 Pro. My understanding is that it came down to chip availability and frankly they couldn't procure what was necessary to launch this year.
But honestly there is little likelihood that we'll ever know for sure what was going on or the internal reasons why certain features sets didn't launch. I do find the above reason to be more likely than a lot of reasons though. One of Apple's biggest "issues" is supply chain management. Being able to get the parts they want in the quantity they want at the price they want is difficult. The iPhone sells more than any other single Android variant - meaning that the iPhone has to have a deeper supply chain than something like the Samsung S20, even though people would consider those two phones to be rivals. iOS is "only" 15-20% of the global market, but there is no other single phone manufacturer that has that level of market-share nor needs to produce as many phones at the top end of the market.

Apple would rather have clean supply chain and perfect implementation than early adoption for a lot of these kinds of features. Although it's obvious at this point to everyone that Apple would likely be able to have this feature perfected in a phone - as they've figured out LTPO on the iWatch and iPad Pro and high Hz on the iPad Pro. So again, that to me signals supply chain issue.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Q-BZ
like this
There was a lot of rumors-ville surrounding 120Hz or higher refresh displays on the 12 Pro. My understanding is that it came down to chip availability and frankly they couldn't procure what was necessary to launch this year.
But honestly there is little likelihood that we'll ever know for sure what was going on or the internal reasons why certain features sets didn't launch. I do find the above reason to be more likely than a lot of reasons though. One of Apple's biggest "issues" is supply chain management. Being able to get the parts they want in the quantity they want at the price they want is difficult. The iPhone sells more than any other single Android variant - meaning that the iPhone has to have a deeper supply chain than something like the Samsung S20, even though people would consider those two phones to be rivals. iOS is "only" 15-20% of the global market, but there is no other single phone manufacturer that has that level of market-share nor needs to produce as many phones at the top end of the market.

Apple would rather have clean supply chain and perfect implementation than early adoption for a lot of these kinds of features. Although it's obvious at this point to everyone that Apple would likely be able to have this feature perfected in a phone - as they've figured out LTPO on the iWatch and iPad Pro and high Hz on the iPad Pro. So again, that to me signals supply chain issue.
Well I think it’s a combination of that and battery life. The 12s have worse battery life than the 11 and that’s with the 12 selectively turning off 5g and the A14 going on 5nm. If you add in a 120hz screen it’s probably going to be worse.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Q-BZ
like this
Well I think it’s a combination of that and battery life. The 12s have worse battery life than the 11 and that’s with the 12 selectively turning off 5g and the A14 going on 5nm. If you add in a 120hz screen it’s probably going to be worse.
It's a really murky area. There are a few things that go into that. LTPO would have offset any loss in battery life in a lot of situations. A lot of the time phones display static objects - In theory then with LTPO the phone could've often just dropped to 1 fps and conserved battery life. If you do a lot of reading like RSS feeds, web browsing, texting (whether through Messages or FB Messenger, or Whats-app or whatever), Social Networking, or reading apps (Kindle, etc) in all those areas there would have been a net positive battery gain (with the only time the phone would ramp "up to" 120fps would be during scrolling). One of the major things that people do with their phones however that does suck up energy is watch videos. With LTPO the frame rate of the video could have been matched. Most content on YouTube or streaming services is either 24 or 30 fps. In other words there would have been a net gain to battery life likely when watching video content as well; web browsing and watching videos is a lot of what people do with their phones.

The big place where there would have been a hit to battery life specifically would have been gaming. Because obviously in that situation you'd want a full 120fps. However in theory it would also depend on the game and how much motion occurs and how games support it. Turn based games might not require or otherwise have 120fps on all the time (Civ 6 as an example has a full iOS port as does XCom), but if you're playing a racing game or FPS obviously the higher hz display would be a considerable change to the user experience.

It's those situations above that directly point to a problem with chip acquisition. Because LTPO could've been added to the iPhone 12 without a 120Hz display. It could be on there with a 60Hz display (eg the Apple Watch) and it would have improved battery life. This is something that I think is really worth noting. Arguably a major differentiator that could've been there between the regular 12 and Pro could have been 120Hz offsetting the cost and making their Pro line feel more premium - whereas all of their phones could've received LTPO to increase battery life. The iPhone 12 Pro has pitfully few differentiating features versus the regular 12 - at this point it's literally a slightly brighter display and a third camera as well as LIDAR. For 99% of people this increase in cost isn't worth it. If it has 120Hz though, that would've been a tangible benefit for a good chuck of their user base even if all they ever did was watch videos and browse.

The only other major argument against is of course cost. I don't do chip supply chain management, so I don't know what Apple can get 100+ million LTPO chips for a net per part cost.

-

The other factor is of course the design decision of the 12 to be using the iPhone 5-like squared off edges. When they chose to move to that form factor they also directly chose to make the phone thinner. One of the things you didn't mention when it came to battery life is of course that literally the battery in the 12 is smaller than the 11 (model for model). In theory they could have kept that 1 or 2mm (whatever it is) and continued to have the phone be slightly thicker to gain back that battery life. I think there were 2 design decisions that went into that though. I think they believed that 5nm would offset at least some of the battery life loss (which it did) and also that square edged phones feel larger in the hand than they are in comparison with rounded phones. And as "silly" as it might sound to people that aren't into design, they wanted the phone to feel svelt but still with the square design language (and the thicker the phone the more those squared edges have the potential to dig into your hand). So I think it was a two part compromise. (As a third thing to consider, they also wanted the iPhone 11 to be exactly the same thickness as the original iPhone 5, which is a perception issue - they likely also didn't want people with iPhone 5's or SE's or SE2's to think that the 12 was "going backwards" in its thickness specification - especially as a lot of that very particular user base might be interested in the iPhone 12 Mini).

If you're super cynical then you can also say they did this to slightly decrease the cost of every phone through their battery over 100 million times - although I would say that Apple gets custom manufactured batteries, so I'd imagine there is little if any net gain in pricing despite size differences and of course this would also only help to offset cost after adding in incredibly expensive Qualcomm 5g chips. I'm sure as a net cost, in general the iPhone 12 costs more in basically every way than the 11 did. Especially considering that now their regular non-pro models also use OLED displays and the cost of 5g chips.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Q-BZ
like this
I could care less about 5G at this time. MmWave is a ways off and the “5G” in most areas is limited. I bought my 12 Pro Max for the bigger screen and battery. I had used the Plus sized phones until the X and then went to the regular 11 but have always missed the bigger phone so bought the 12 Pro Max outright from Apple and delivered today. 1/2 hour later up and running where I left off in my 11. My 11 goes to my son to replace his 6s Plus. Nice upgrade for each of us.
 

Attachments

  • 9889FE5B-9BD4-426A-B8E5-EBBDD6D98CBD.jpeg
    9889FE5B-9BD4-426A-B8E5-EBBDD6D98CBD.jpeg
    725.1 KB · Views: 0
  • 42869A5C-FEB4-46D9-BA10-24B9A01D93B7.jpeg
    42869A5C-FEB4-46D9-BA10-24B9A01D93B7.jpeg
    637.8 KB · Views: 0
The lidar scanner is pretty cool. I just scanned my daughter's bedroom using polycam - I never realized how messy it was until I viewed it from above.
 
my dad bought a 512gb pro max at full retail price.

what a waste.

the camera video is shit quality, and he barely uses the iphone to its full capacity. He maybe uses the camera once on a vacation trip, and this year and next year, there will be no travel.
what a waste of $1400.
 
I saw the 12 pro max in person today, that’s a big boy! Still unsure if I should go for pro or pro max...anyone with feedback or regrets based on your decisions?
 
I saw the 12 pro max in person today, that’s a big boy! Still unsure if I should go for pro or pro max...anyone with feedback or regrets based on your decisions?

I went from the 11 to Pro Max and no regrets. Had plus sized iPhones before and to me if you were OK with a plus size phone before then Pro Max is fine.

Screen is a major upgrade from the regular 11 as the quality is excellent. I did turn TruTone off as it can be yellowish with it on and whites are white again.

The camera is better, how much I don’t know as the 11 took great pictures and the 12 PM takes great pictures as well.

If you are into more than point and shoot read this article where they get into the nitty gritty but they also have an app they are pushing:

https://blog.halide.cam/the-iphone-12-pro-max-real-pro-photography-267ad4ac94e2

I bought it for the larger screen and battery but the camera is a bonus.

I use my phone for work and home and being at home working for the foreseeable future the extra screen real estate comes in handy for GoToMeeting, Zoom, etc. virtual meetings.
 
I went from the 11 to Pro Max and no regrets. Had plus sized iPhones before and to me if you were OK with a plus size phone before then Pro Max is fine.

Screen is a major upgrade from the regular 11 as the quality is excellent. I did turn TruTone off as it can be yellowish with it on and whites are white again.

The camera is better, how much I don’t know as the 11 took great pictures and the 12 PM takes great pictures as well.

If you are into more than point and shoot read this article where they get into the nitty gritty but they also have an app they are pushing:

https://blog.halide.cam/the-iphone-12-pro-max-real-pro-photography-267ad4ac94e2

I bought it for the larger screen and battery but the camera is a bonus.

I use my phone for work and home and being at home working for the foreseeable future the extra screen real estate comes in handy for GoToMeeting, Zoom, etc. virtual meetings.
Thanks. I've always bought the smaller ones but I've been needing the bigger screen real estate so I can do work/email easier.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top