Apple iPhone 12 and 12 Pro: What to expect By Engadget

So we finally know when apple's next launch is happening October, 13th at 10am, pacific or 1pm eastern thanks to months and months and months of rumors. We have a pretty good idea of what apple's going to announce to four new iPhone 12 models. Needless to say, next week is going to be extremely busy. So before all of that lets, you- and I take a few minutes today- to run through the highlights of apple's, long-awaited and delayed iPhone announcements. Now, even though we're expecting to see the most new iPhones apple has ever revealed in one shot, they should all have a lot in common. So let's start there, the tagline for the event is high speed, which to me seems like a pretty clear reference to two new developments.

For this year, the a14 bionic chipset and the company's inevitable embrace of 5g. Now apple already talked about the a14 a bit when it announced the new iPad Air, like the fact that it packs a 6 core CPU and a powerful new quad-core GPU. We also know that the chipset was developed based on the 5 nanometer process, which means a few things for one. It should be at least a little more energy efficient than the a13 chipset we got last year, but, more importantly, Apple was able to cram nearly 12 billion transistors into this thing, which is more than three billion more than what we got in the a13. Now most of the a14's new transistor budget was used to flush out the neural engine in significant ways, which should lead to a big performance boost not just for system level features like Siri, but also for apps that rely on machine learning models and augmented reality with all that said, it's still not clear just how much faster this iPhone chipset is compared to last year, when apple laid out the performance improvements compared to the previous iPad Air.

The a14 sounded pretty beastly, but what you have to remember is that those promises of vastly improved, CPU and GPU performance only apply when you're, comparing the a14 to the two-year-old a12 found in the current iPad Air and then there's 5g, which was a big point of contention. For a while, it seems, like apple, was only able to move forward with it after patching things up with Qualcomm and presumably gaining access to their 5g modems anyway. We're expecting all versions of the iPhone 12 to support 5g, but with a caveat, sub 65g networks have a much larger footprint in the US and most of the world right now. Actually, so it's no surprise that all the new iPhones should play nice with those networks. We've heard, though, that the support for a much faster but more geographically limited, millimeter wave 5g networks will be very limited.

It's possible that only the biggest most premium version of the iPhone 12 will be able to tap into those networks, but we'll have to see now about the iPhones themselves, we're expecting to see every version of the iPhone 12 sporting, a new kind of squared off design sort of like the iPhone 5 and the more recent iPad pros, and as someone who believed iPhone designs peaked with the iPhone 5, I'm pretty stoked to see where apple landed. Here, if all the rumors hold true, you can also expect nice looking OLED screens across the board and potentially smaller notches. Thanks to improvements made to the true depth camera system, these things might all even be a little slimmer than the models they replaced, which I will certainly never complain about, and we don't think any of these will come with earbuds and USB charging bricks. We're expecting to see a surprisingly tiny version of the iPhone 12 that might even be called the iPhone 12 mini because of its 5.4 inch. Retina display size wise that would make it a little bigger than the original iPhone SE and a little smaller than the iPhone SE released earlier this year, which, in other words, makes this.

The smallest new iPhone apple has made in a really long time and that's honestly nice to hear just because there aren't that many great small phones out there rumors suggest this thing will be available with either 64 128 or 256. Gigs of storage and two 12 megapixel cameras around the back, we're guessing it's another combination of a standard wide and ultra-wide camera. The next step. Up from there is the regular iPhone, 12 or iPhone 12 max we're not really sure about the name, yet it'll pack, all the same components as the smaller iPhone 12, just with a bigger 6.1 inch display, which means it's more or less the same size as the iPhone 11. What's fascinating is that the new iPhone 12 Pro is supposedly the same size, which I guess I can't be too surprised about.

Apple in the past has been very candid about the fact that 6.1 inches is the sweet spot for iPhone designs. The big difference here is that the 12 pro screen supposedly supports 10-bit color for improved color accuracy and might- and I really cannot emphasize the word- might enough support a 120hz refresh rate for ultra smooth scrolling and on-screen motion. Apart from that, we're expecting apple to stick with three rear cameras, just like last year's iPhone, 11 pros, but there's a solid chance, they'll be joined by a LIDAR emitter like the one built into this year's iPad. Pro LIDAR stands for light, detection and ranging, and if you've ever heard of these things before it's probably because LIDAR sensors are crucial for spatial awareness and self-driving cars. The most obvious use case in a phone, though, is for augmented reality.

This LIDAR array shoots out light and very quickly measures how fast that light gets reflected back which will help it recognize the space and the objects taking up space in it. When you couple that, with the a14's new neural engine, we could be looking at a renaissance of augmented reality apps, but that's really up to developers to decide throw in six gigs of ram in either 64 256 or 512. Gigs of storage, and we've got a pretty potent little package, and then there is the iPhone 12 Pro max, which is obviously the biggest iPhone 12 of them all. But funny thing is, since it supposedly packs a 6.7-inch screen, the iPhone 12 Pro max will likely be the biggest iPhone ever period again expect this thing to pack the same guts and improved screen as the regular iPhone 12 Pro, but with one major difference. If any iPhone is going to play nice with both sub 6 and millimeter wave 5g networks, it's this one and that probably will reflect in the price, which is a pretty nice segue, because there are a few finer points that we don't have a firm grasp on.

But two in particular really stand out. How much will these phones cost, and when will they be released? It's time to put on the speculation hat, some leaks have suggested that the smallest iPhone 12 could cost as low as 650 dollars for the 64 gig model, and, if that's true, it would be highly unlikely to see the iPhone XL for anything less than 750. Meanwhile, the consensus is that the iPhone 12 Pro will start at a thousand dollars, just like the iPhone 10 and 11 pro before it, but depending on how different it is, the iPhone 12 Pro max could reach as high as 1200 to start. It's also a safe bet that you'll be able to at least pre-order an iPhone 12 on the Friday after the event with units hitting doorsteps later this month, but things could be different for the iPhone 12 Pro. We have seen some claims that they won't even go up for pre-order until November.

Now, four new versions of the iPhone sounds like plenty to me, but this is apple. We're talking about the pioneer of the one more thing, maybe apple will finally reveal this studio grade, over-the-ear AirPods, which I think would finally cease to be pods, but whatever or a second generation HomePod, which is definitively still a pod. We may even get our first glimpse in apple's silicon powered max, though honestly, that's probably important enough to get another event of its own anyway. Furthermore, we don't have that much longer to wait. So thank you for watching me run through what we expect to see from Apple's event next week in my basement.

It's always a perfect time. Let us know what you think of apple's new iPhones and what you're looking forward to from the event next week down below or with an email to videngadget. com. We really appreciate your continued support. We're going to keep doing this, and I'm going to see you guys next week when our live coverage kicks off.

You.

Source : Engadget