Apple enters 5G race with new iPhone 12 range

[webfact]

Apple enters 5G race with new iPhone 12 range

By Stephen Nellis

 

Apple CEO Tim Cook poses with the all-new iPhone 12 Pro at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, U.S. in a photo released October 13, 2020. Brooks Kraft/Apple Inc./Handout via REUTERS

 

(Reuters) - Apple Inc on Tuesday launched its next-generation iPhone 12, with faster 5G connectivity that the California company hopes will spur consumers to trade in their old phones and keep its sales booming through the end of the year.

 

The core of the line-up, the iPhone 12 with a 6.1-inch display, will sell for $799, while a 'Mini' version with a 5.4-inch screen will be slightly cheaper at $699. A 'Pro' version with three cameras and a new 3-D 'lidar' sensor starts at $999, with the largest 'Pro Max' starting at $1,099 and going up to $1,399.

 

The new products will test whether Apple can ride a wave of consumer excitement around 5G wireless data networks, whose speediest variants outstrip their predecessors' data rates multiple times over.

 

But whether iPhone buyers see a dramatic speed boost will depend heavily on where they are and which carrier they use - what Bob O'Donnell, head of TECHnalysis Research, called "lots of little niggly details that get in the way of delivering on the promise of 5G."

 

He said Apple may be setting some customers up for disappointment when phones ship but offer only modest speed increases until carriers build out networks.

 

"I don't feel like Apple clarified that as much as they could have," O'Donnell said.

 

Apple said all iPhone 12 models in the United States will support millimeter wave 5G, the fastest variant of the technology, as well as lower-frequency bands.

 

Apple on Tuesday launched four versions of its new flagship iPhone 12 with faster 5G connectivity in hopes of sparking an upgrade cycle that will keep sales booming through the end of the year. Conway G.Gittens has more on what's coming.

 

Outside of the United States, however, iPhones will lack millimeter wave compatibility, even in countries like Australia and South Korea where carriers are planning to roll out versions of the millimeter wave technology. Like some cheaper Android devices, iPhone 12 models in those countries will only support lower-frequency versions of 5G.

 

Apple said it had tested 5G on more than 800 carriers in 30 regions globally. Verizon Communications Inc CEO Hans Vestberg appeared on Apple's livestream presentation to announce that the phones would work with the U.S. carrier's 'ultrawideband' 5G network, designed to alleviate bottlenecks in major cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as in crowded areas like NFL stadiums.

 

The devices will arrive about a month later than is usual for Apple's annual launches. Pre-orders for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro in the United States, Britain, China and some other countries begin Oct. 16 and deliveries start Oct. 23. The iPhone Mini and Pro Max will be available for pre-order Nov. 6 and in stores Nov. 13.

 

Apple may face a lukewarm holiday season due to the coronavirus pandemic, said Jake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Management in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

 

"As the convergence of flu season with COVID and colder weather forces everyone indoors, I think it's going to be harder to sell iPhones this Christmas. As much as Apple is a technology company, it's not known for its online sales, it's known for its in-store experience," Dollarhide said.

 

Shares of Apple fell over 3% during the event, erasing $77 billion worth of stock market value, and closed down 2.7%.

 

HOMEPOD MINI

Apple also announced a HomePod Mini smart speaker that will cost $99 and be shipped from Nov. 16. Many of the features serve as a catch-up to similar offerings from Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google.

 

But Ben Bajarin, principal analyst for consumer market intelligence at research firm Creative Strategies, said Apple had fleshed out its vision for how its devices could interact more directly with its own speakers than rivals had. For example, Apple customers can speak into their iPhone or iPad to use the HomePod Minis like an intercom system.

 

"That's not something that Google or Amazon, particularly Amazon, can do so cleanly," said Bajarin. "The advantage Apple has that they pressed on is that a good portion of those (Google and Amazon) customers have iPhones. They leveraged the fact they own the pocket."

 

(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Noel Randewich, Krystal Hu and Echo Wang; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Rosalba O'Brien)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-10-14

 

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[Pravda]

Wow... it looks exactly like iPhone 5

[Rmac442]

still falls well short of a Samsung Note 20 .. but guess that Apple sticker on the back is so important to many ...posers!!

Edited October 14, 2020 by Rmac442
Correction

[lust]

2 minutes ago, Rmac442 said:

still falls well short of a Samsung Note 20 .. but guess that Apple sticker on the back is so important to many ...posers!!

The iPhone is great for dummies like me that don’t need full control over what their phone does. It is easy to use and difficult to mess anything up. The only thing that annoys me is that I can’t change the length of time on the snooze button and I can’t turn off the annoying 20% and 10% battery notification. I feel like the updates also create just as many bugs as the ones they try to patch. Très annoying. 
 

I spent some time with a Samsung and I was annoyed within the first few minutes. 
 

My iPhone 6s still does what I need it to do so there’s no need to upgrade it still for some time. 

[Mike Teavee]

3 hours ago, Pravda said:

Wow... it looks exactly like iPhone 5

Awesome, I miss my IPhone 5S & looking forward to the "Mini" coming out  (Not everybody walks around with a manbag ????)

 

But what I really want is a folding phone, trouble is I've become so invested in the Apple ecosystem over the past 6-7 years (Macbook, IPhone X, IPad, Apple Watch + box load of accessories) it's hard to not look to them for my next Phone Upgrade. 

 

What I would say about Apple is the last product I bought from them was my IPhone X which was 2.5 years ago (Feb 2018 IIRC), their products do seem to last longer than their competitors, e.g. my Macbook Pro is 6.5 years old & still speedier than the majority of laptops you can buy

 

Edit: Though I am typing this on my Acer Chromebook (somehow it's just much easier to fire this up when all's I'm doing is surfing the net + the touch screen is handy), tend to use my Firetab more than my iPad & have a Lenovo Ideapad for messing around with Linux so maybe I am starting to break away from the apple chains after all ???? 

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2020 by Mike Teavee

[Pedrogaz]

Wow.....innovation gone crazy, different sizes? You can collect the whole set......and even zanier, they come in different colours....how innovative is that? 

One gets the sense that Apple has lost their edge. Yet if one were to collect the whole set you would have about 30 phones? OK for a drug dealer, but for mom and pop too many phone numbers to remember. 

[Chelseafan]

But does it have Snake ? #nokia3310

 

 

[scammed]

On 10/14/2020 at 12:52 PM, Mike Teavee said:

my Macbook Pro is 6.5 years old & still speedier than the majority of laptops you can buy

i think its due to microsoft OS, win 10 consumes

a lot more hardware then win xp,

so much so that my 6.5 year old laptop performed a whole lot better in spite of being inferior in every way by orders of magnitude

[ravip]

On 10/14/2020 at 8:29 AM, lust said:

The iPhone is great for dummies like me that don’t need full control over what their phone does. It is easy to use and difficult to mess anything up. The only thing that annoys me is that I can’t change the length of time on the snooze button and I can’t turn off the annoying 20% and 10% battery notification. I feel like the updates also create just as many bugs as the ones they try to patch. Très annoying. 
 

I spent some time with a Samsung and I was annoyed within the first few minutes. 
 

My iPhone 6s still does what I need it to do so there’s no need to upgrade it still for some time. 

I spent some time with a Samsung and I was annoyed within the first few minutes. 
 

What really made you get annoyed with the Samsung?

[lust]

12 hours ago, ravip said:

I spent some time with a Samsung and I was annoyed within the first few minutes. 
 

What really made you get annoyed with the Samsung?

It was the buttons mostly. I’m so used to having 1 button that brings me back to home screen and double clicking it allows you to control what app you want to close or navigate to. I like the simplicity of Apple store and iTunes as well.

 

The simpler the better for me. I use my phone primarily for browsing, music, and taking photos. 
 

 

[Yellowtail]

I like the the iphone, I also tried and android phone for a while and did not like it. 

 

While I like the product, I tried to watch the roll-out video and that TIm Cook creeps me out. The video made me wish I didn't like the product.