Apple finally revealed the iPhone 12 family. This includes the iPhone 12, of course, but also the iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. The rumors were… so completely accurately true that it was kind of boring to watch the presentation.
Still, these are some exciting new devices, and we should definitely talk about them. So, let’s discuss the new iPhone 12 lineup, as well as the new MagSafe accessories Apple’s introducing alongside their new iPhones.
In This Article:
What They All Have
I thought I’d split this up into things all of the new iPhones have, then break out what they have that’s unique. That way I’m not repeating myself so much. Interestingly, the iPhones aren’t as different as you might think. The differentiation between the devices can actually come down to your preference on screen size, battery life, night portrait photos, and focusing in the dark.
Ceramic Shield Glass
Nearly everyone puts a case on their smartphone. It’s just what you do. Phones have gotten too large to reliably hold in your hand, and that size, shape, and weight have made them far too fragile. However, the iPhone 12 does so much to fix that. It has squared off edges, to give you something better to grip, a display that is flush with the side, to reduce the glass area that could make contact with the ground during a drop, and a new ceramic glass compound that Apple developed with Corning to make the front glass of your iPhone the strongest it’s ever been. This binds ceramic crystals directly into the glass, making it four times less likely to break on a drop. It’s still scratch resistant too.
Super Retina XDR OLED Display
In the iPhone 11 and iPhone XR before it, the OLED display was reserved only for the “Pro” iPhone models. The rest had to deal with LCD. This was lower resolution (720p, gross!), wasn’t as bright, was lacking in contrast, and couldn’t display as many colors. It’s not a terrible display, but it was definitely worse than the “Super Retina XDR” OLED displays Apple put in their Pro models.
With the iPhone 12, all of the iPhone models are getting the best displays. In fact, the smallest iPhone, the iPhone 12 mini, will have a 1080p display and a higher pixel density than any other iPhone. It may end up being the best looking display of the four… if you’re okay with it being the smallest.
A14
The A14 chip is fast. It’s what powers the iPad Air, and, in that, it’s a chip that can almost beat the A12z in the iPad Pro and Developer Kit Apple Silicon Mac Minis. This is a desktop-class processor in a mobile device.
The A14 is the first 5nm chip in the industry, with lower power consuption and, super fast, tiny transistors. It’s up to 50% faster than chips used in other devices, and has a new 16-core neural engine. It’s insanely powerful, and was made specifically for the iPhone.
Apple is so far ahead of the competition on processors that the A14’s closest rival is the A12Z or A13, both Apple chips.
5G
Apple talked about this at length. Too much length, if you ask me.
The iPhone 12 will support 5G, including Sub-6GHz and mmWave 5G. You may never notice it, need it, or use it, because it’s not widespread yet and coverage is horrible where it does exist. Apple’s ready for the future though, once the telecoms can catch up.
Power Cable
We’ve got to talk about this. The iPhones will be coming in smaller boxes, which is something I wanted. They’ll be leaving the power brick and headphones behind. Apple’s making their chargers and headphones cheaper to accommodate those who have neither.
However, Apple switched up the cable in the box. It’s now a USB-C to Lightning cable. Most people have USB-A charging bricks around their houses. They likely don’t have one with USB-C unless they went out of their way to purchase one or got the iPhone 11 Pro last year. In other words, most people are still going to need a charger, and, since it comes in another box, it’ll actually add to the carbon footprint.
I get why Apple switched to USB-C, but maybe they could have considered doing this next year, rather than making the switch the same year they’re ditching a power adapter in the box?
MagSafe and Charging
The iPhone is going to have a bunch of magnets on it. These magnets surround the charging coil, allowing Apple and other third party companies to make snap-on chargers and accessories. MagSafe will allow secure pass-through 15W charging, even through wallet cases, without damaging credit cards.
Interestingly, MagSafe iPhones will work with regular wireless chargers, but, for some reason, only with 7.5W charging. It’s possible that this is due to controls placed in the MagSafe standard to allow for safer high speed charging.
Camera Similarities
All of the cameras, with the exception of the 12 Pro Max, will have the same wide angle primary lens and sensors. The Pro Max, described below, has a completely different camera system.
All of the iPhone 12 cameras will get a new Night Mode. The ultra wide and front facing cameras, even on the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini, get the new night mode enhancements.
They’re all also getting Dolby Vision 4K video. This is HDR video that captures an incredible amount of color information in every frame. It allows users to edit videos later, pulling out details. It also analyzes each frame, essentially making each video frame an HDR image. The result is brighter, clearer videos.
Still Only Face ID
One disappointing piece of news though. The iPhone 12 still only has Face ID. You’d think Apple would have made putting a fingerprint scanner in the iPhone a larger priority this year, but it just couldn’t make the cut. We’ll just have to continue entering our 15 digit passcodes every time we want to unlock our iPhones while our with masks on.
iPhone 12 mini
The iPhone 12 mini will feature a 5.4 inch display. Battery life will be the least out of the new smartphones, coming in at 15 hours of stored video playback and 10 hours of video streaming. That’s 2 hours and 1 hour of less time than the iPhone 12.
Both the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 feature 64GB-256GB of storage.
The screens on both devices, while still OLED panels, are 625nits. The Pro models will be a brighter 800nits. Will you notice it? Maybe a little, but not often. If you frequently watch videos in bright sunlight, you may prefer the 12 Pro screen.
iPhone 12
The iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 mini are basically the same devices, with the exception of the screen sizes and density. However, the iPhone 12 will be able to achieve an extra hour of video streaming, and an extra two hours of video playback for videos stored on the device. That’s going to translate to a few more hours of regular usage throughout the day. Pick the iPhone 12 over the iPhone 12 mini if battery life is more important to you than being able to carry your phone in one hand or store it in a pocket… perhaps even your front pocket!
Folks, the iPhone 12 mini might fit in the front pocket of women’s jeans. Do you have any idea of how crazy that is?
Pro Benefits
The Pro camera is the largest benefit to the more expensive device. Both the 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max now come with LiDAR. This enables night mode portraits with the telephoto lens and six times faster autofocus in low light. The telephoto lens in the iPhone 12 Pro is a 2x lens, while the iPhone 12 Pro Max has a 2.5x lens.
The Pro models will also get Apple’s new Apple ProRAW format. This is a RAW image that has been run through Apple’s pipeline. It can still be adjusted by the user after the fact. There seems to be no reason this couldn’t be on the iPhone 11. It’s just allowing a RAW image to be edited after Apple has done its own processing. However, it’s for the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max only. It’ll be released sometime in the future. Apple hasn’t been specific.
Finally, both Pro models have up to 51GB of storage, and start with 128GB.
iPhone 12 Pro
The iPhone 12 Pro has the same 17 hour battery life for watching stored videos as the iPhone 12, so it likely shares the same battery life in other categories. However, since it does have a brighter display, it’s possible it would actually have less battery life at full brightness.
It’s the same size as the iPhone 12 screen as well, 6.1 inches.
iPhone 12 Pro Max
The iPhone 12 Pro Max has a much larger battery, allowing for 20 hours of video watching. The screen is a whopping 6.7 inches, enough to firmly place it in “phablet” territory. The camera in the iPhone 12 Pro Max is the best of the bunch, by a surprisingly wide margin. The sensor has optical image stabilization, as well as the lens. That sensor is also significantly larger than the others, coming in with 1.7µm pixels vs the smaller 1.4µm pixels in the other iPhone 12 models. This means it can gather significantly more light for a better low light photo.
Release Date
The 6.1-inch iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro will be available for preorder on October 16th. Some bad news for fans of the smallest and largest iPhones. The iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max will be available for preorder on November 6th.They’ll release a week later, if you’re lucky enough to get your preorder in early.