– They removed the charging
block and the headphones, then decided they needed
to raise the price $30 and still have the starting
memory at 64 gigabytes. What gives? And I'll actually point
out they raised it by $130. I'm Rene Ritchie. And you had questions
about the iPhone 12 event. You wanted answers, you wanted the truth and I'm here to handle that for you. And as always members over
at patrion.com/reneritchie have Q&A priority. That's just how it works. But if your question didn't get answered and you have more questions or follow up just hit the subscribe button and bell, so that you can be notified
when new videos go live and I'll hang with you
for the first hour or so. And we can chat. Cool? Let's do this. No 120 refresh rate, why? Why 5G instead of 120 Hertz? Why Dolby Vision instead of 120 Hertz? I didn't ask for Dolby Vision? Why can every other phone just
do this and not the iPhone? Why just, why? RedLetterMedia style, why.
My guess is that simply because, there is not enough capacity
not enough yield yet for LTPO OLED panels. Those are the ones that
Samsung is using in the note 20 and they allow adaptive refresh similar to what Apple has done
for years with the iPad Pro. When Apple got oxide into the LCD displays for the iPad is when they were able to do adaptive refresh there. And what they've been using for a couple of years
now on the Apple Watch. And again, that's because
those displays went into LTPO and they use the variable refresh there to go from 60 to one for
the always-on display. On the iPad pro they use
it to go from 60 to 120 for things like scrolling
and Apple pencil. And also to go down to 48
Hertz or 24 Hertz to do things like show 24 frames per second movies or to conserve battery power. And that's really what Apple wants to do. They don't wanna have 120 Hertz, they wanna have adaptive refresh rate so they can drive it at
everything from 24 to 120. And based on the panels that
Apple is believed to be using which are similar to the Galaxy S20 not the note 20 panels,
that's just not possible yet.
And if you can't do the adaptive part you have to make a bunch of trade-offs which is how other companies are doing it. Either they switched
down to lower resolution and they have scalers
of questionable quality, or their color management
goes out the window and you can literally see
the white point changing as the refresh rate changes. And I think that's probably
just a deal breaker for Apple. So again, my guess is we'll get this as soon as Apple gets those panels, which is probably next year. And they just decided to do it right instead of doing it right now. "Why no 8K video recording on the iPhone? Who cares about Dolby Vision, give us 8K other phones are
giving us 8K, why isn't Apple." This is actually super interesting because I would really like 8K, only because, not a lot of
people can display 8K yet, but when you're editing
video, you can punch in to 4K. You can pan and scan around in post. So it just gives you a lot
more options in editing. But Apple is sticking
with 12 megapixel sensors.
They haven't gone to these huge, 48 or 108 megapixel sensors. So they're limited to those 16 megapixels. And I think you need at
least 33 or more for 8K. So Apple is sticking to
the quality of the 4K instead of the quantity of the 8K. And they're doing Dolby
Vision for the similar reason. And I remember a few years ago when I went to WWDC, Bob Borchers who just went back to Apple you saw him in the home pod mini segment of the event earlier this week. He was Adobe back then and I got to go there when they were introducing Dolby Vision. And they gave us this demo with "The Last Jedi, Star Wars" trailer. Where they showed it to us in 4K and then they showed
it to us in 1080P HDR, high dynamic range using Dolby Vision and the Dolby Vision the HDR version just blew the 4K version out the water because after you get to a certain point the pixel density doesn't matter as much.
It just becomes waste. And the quality of the image becomes more important than the quantity. And the high dynamic range
is what is improving there. So that's just the ability
to show deeper blacks and keep maintain highlights
as the whites get brighter and have that real deep red and sort of lush green that just makes the entire image better. And it's why we all want Dolby Vision on Netflix and Disney plus,
and with all the Star Wars and all the Marvel movies
and everything like that. And Apple emphasizing Dolby Vision as much as I want 8K and as much as yes, (speaking in foreign language) I think it's gonna take a while before Apple gets into bigger sensors especially considering the
trade-offs you then make with the size of the pixels and technologies like
pixel-binning and all that. So it's a nice to have, but
if I was given the choice I would definitely want
HDR over 8K at this point. "Why didn't Apple put Touch ID
into the iPhone power button like they did the new iPad Air? Don't they realize face ID is
a huge pain with masks on." And I think this is where what's usually a huge strength for Apple became a bit of a weakness.
And that's always the case. Our biggest strengths are
always our biggest weaknesses and that is they work on
these phones years out. And it might seem if you listen to leaks
and things like that that these decisions are all
being made at the last minute but that's not at all true. They're hearing echoes of decisions that were
made a long time ago. Very, very few things are decided late on in a product cycle. So when they're releasing
this year's phone, they're already working
on next year's phone and the phone after that. And I think if they had their druthers if they were more agile in their process if they weren't as tightly
integrated in a way they would been able to spin around faster and do something like
adding Touch ID as well.
But currently the rumors say that Touch ID is coming back next year. That that was the sort of
planned reintroduction period. And so far, the rumors have said, it'll be in-display Touch ID,
not power button Touch ID. And Apple has patents on an
acoustic version of that. Not the optical kind you
see in some Android phones, but the acoustical kind, which I think is similar to what Qualcomm has done on Samsung phones, that sort of technology. So I would have really liked it because we do live in a world
that's been radically changed over the last few months. Kenneth Perry on Patreon asked, "Any idea what the back of the iPhone 12 phones are made of?" And MehNitesh2, on Twitter asks, if ceramic glass is also on the rear of either the pro or non-pro models.
And no, the ceramic glass
is only on the front. What Apple is calling Ceramic Shield. Is basically ceramic impregnated glass. So it's scientifically not glass but it's a hybrid compound. And that is on the front. On the back is the same
glass as last year. Which I believe is still stronger than any other Gorilla Glass type product chemically hardened,
ion exchange style glass on the market yet. Apple works with Corning. They're literally on the floor at Corning working on this stuff and they get access to unique or custom and early versions of all the stuff that
Corning is working on.
So it's not Ceramic Shield, but it's among the best
in class that you can get. Maybe even the best in class that you can get on the back still. GAdams_Spink on Twitter asks, "Ceramic Shield, will it mean an end to glass screen protectors?" And no alas, because one of the things, one of the trade-offs that
you get with these glass these composite hybrid chemical
ion exchange glass products, is that they can be optimized for shatter resistance
or scratch resistance but they don't seem to be able to do both. And some years, it goes back and forth between one or the other. But for the last few years, it seems like Apple and Corning both have really been focusing
on shatter resistance. And you're getting a lot of
protection from Ceramic Shield in terms of that. And also the new design, the loss of the curves,
just the flattening, the great flattening of the phone really improves the strength when it comes to shatter resistance but I don't believe there's any change in scratch resistance.
So if you were using a
glass screen protector for that previously, you're
gonna wanna keep on doing that. If you're worried about scratches you're absolutely gonna
wanna keep on doing that. And Thomas Frank. Hey, Thomas Frank of YouTube productivity and #gearfame on Twitter says, "I only caught a bit of the launch video, but which phones will have IBIS? Which ones should I be
looking at as a camera guy?" And so if you're not familiar
with camera terminology IBIS is in body image stabilization. In cameras, you can have stabilization in the body of the camera and
also stabilization in the lens and then also you can have electronic image stabilization as well.
And so all of the iPhone 12s have OIS, which is optical image stabilization. And that just means if
the sensor is being shaken if it's shook, the lens
is sort of floating and will compensate as
best as it can for that. And Apple just keeps ramping up the response rate on the lens, but it's still a two component system and it's a little bit more complex. So what the iPhone 12 Pro Max is doing, is bringing that stabilization
into the sensor itself.
So only the sensor now is
floating instead of the lens. It's a much simpler process and it should be much more
stable even than the previous OIS and also result in better
quality photos and video. So if you are a camera person you're definitely gonna wanna go with the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Joshua Karp on Patreon asks, "Trying to decide between
the Pro and the Pro Max. What exactly are the camera differences?" And Kyle Giglio also on Patreon asks, "How big of a difference do you project between the Pro and the Max cameras?" And Tim Gjenvick on Patreon
asks, "Any other differences?" So you're gonna have the
standard basic differences which is just bigger
screen and bigger battery.
And the differences in the camera is that, there is a bigger sensor,
physically bigger sensor on the wide angle on
the I phone 12 pro max. And that just means you'll be able to bring in more light and
get better, better photographs especially better low light photographs. The telephoto camera has
gone from a fact of 52 I believe 52 millimeter to 65 millimeter. So it's just a different type of lens. The aperture is not quite as good, so it doesn't let in as much light, but it'll give you a
totally different look and an extra 0.5 of zoom.
So instead of going from,
zero in the wide angle it'll go to 2.5 now in the
telephoto instead of just two. And then there's the stabilization the sensor-based stabilization that I already just mentioned. I've done a whole video
explaining the differences between the various iPhone 12 models. So I'll link to that in
the description as well. Cgxos on Twitter, "Should we upgrade from 11 Pro
if we use the camera a lot." And I always sort of cringe
when 90% of the videos talk about upgrading year
over year because I feel like, if you have enough
money, you just do that. If you care about always having
the best, you just do that. If you are on an annual upgrade
program, you just do that. And if not, you probably keep your phone for two, three, four years.
But I realized tech Twitter
is a very specific audience. So a few years ago when there
were still iPhone lineups I think it was probably
the iPhone 10 S launch. I was at the Fifth Avenue Apple Store, and I was just talking to people in line and asking them why they were upgrading. And one of the people there said that the iPhone was their primary camera that they just used it for everything.
It was how they took photos
of their newborn children. And they could never go back
in time and get better photos. So they always wanted to make sure they could take the best
photos of their kids possible. And so they always made sure
they had the latest iPhone with the best camera possible. So if that's your situation if the iPhone is your primary camera and photography videography
is really important to you and you have the finances to do it. And the camera seems like it'll
offer you more capabilities like the iPhone 12 Pro
Max is doing this year, then absolutely do it. But if none of those things are true, then again, I don't think most people ever need to upgrade year over year. Warwick on Patreon wants to
know about the differences between the regular and the pro. And this year, there doesn't seem to be that many differences, just
some colors and the camera. And is there anything else? Apple has essentially made
the regulars into almost pros, and so the difference with the
pros really is the materials.
You have the stainless steel
instead of the aluminum you have the different finishes and then you have the
extra telephoto camera the LiDAR scanner, and on the Max, you just have the enhanced photographic capabilities in general. So you really have to
specifically want those things. Otherwise, the non-Pro almost Pro I think, is just as good a value,
probably a better value for most people at this point. @ChrisPirillo on Twitter icon Trailblazer, original streamer. "When is Apple gonna stop focusing on a dozen variants and instead on a single spectacular
software experience again?" And Chris is super salty that ever since we went to more than one
screen size on the iPhone he feels that the interface
and user experience has just plummeted on the iPhone. And I think that's really, really fair.
Back when there was one
pixel perfect screen solution through the original iPhones and into the iPhone 5, 5s people were literally
designing by the pixel and there was only one phone to sort of manage to focus on every year. So everyone on the human interface team was carrying that phone, and complaining about any
little defect they saw. But even back then there were just all sorts
of bugs and weirdness. I think that some of this
is rose colored glasses and you can make a list a mile long, about problems that existed
with just the one screen size. But obviously that's magnified now that we have so many
different screen sizes, because everything from
size classes to auto layout it just introduces much more opportunity for those things to go wrong.
And scale is always the enemy of quality. It's much harder to do many many things much more broadly than it is to do one thing. So I think those days have just passed and it's only tech nerds like us. It's the 1% that really
deeply care about that. And if any company wants to be successful they eventually have
to look beyond the 1%, they have to address the
mass market and their needs, not their needs, but their
priorities are really different.
@reekeanu, whoa, on Twitter asks, "Any chances the iPhone
12 mini, may have less RAM than the iPhone 12 and
an underclocked CPU?" My guess is it won't have less RAM. I don't know about the CPU. We'll have to wait and see. But this is one of those things where I wouldn't worry about it. And again, it goes back
to the nerd culture versus mainstream culture is that, we want everything with zero compromises and that's just not how
design, development, production, implementation
any of this works. There are always trade-offs. If you want something smaller there's less room to put things inside it. If you have a smaller battery it's less able to absorb to handle spikes in CPU demand for example. It's why Apple no longer makes phones as small as the original SE or 5s Modern processors like A14 would just hit it too hard and it would brown out and
the phone would shut off.
So Apple is gonna do, my guess, my expectation is that Apple will do what they usually do and that is make sure that everything is working
in an integrated way. And the CPU is demanding exactly what the battery can supply. And at that requires slight changes in base or peak frequency they'll do that. I don't expect any of that but I wouldn't be surprised by it. And I really don't think it matters. It's more of a implementation detail and something that
nerds get anxious about, I think often for no reason. @deerspider on Twitter, "They remove the charging
block and the headphones.
Then decided they needed
to raise the price $30 and still have the starting memory at 64 gigabytes, what gives?" And I'll actually point out
they raised it by $130, not $30. And @Zaigum, "What's your
view on USB-C being included but not the charging block. We all have charging blocks for USB-A. Is it really an environmental reason, or just a way for us to spend more on a USB-C compatible charging block?" So the iPhone 10R was $800 and
then the iPhone 11 was $700. And now the iPhone 12
is going back up to $800 on Verizon and AT&T but $830 if you just buy it outright or on any other carrier.
And the iPhone mini is slotting in beneath it at $700. But again, $730 if you're
not on Verizon and AT&T. And that's a considerable
price hike especially in 2020, when I feel like just as a world we are less able to absorb. A lot of people are
really hurting right now and phones general, the
price of almost every phone has shot up this year. Mostly due to, higher quality displays more expensive displays, but also 5G. And what Qualcomm is
charging for processors on the Android side, but also
just 5G modems in general. A lot of them buy $100.
And so I get that, the iPhone, the regular iPhone has gone from a lower density LCD, much less expensive display, to a much higher density OLED, much more expensive display. And from a relatively
inexpensive LTE radio to a much more expensive 5G radio, especially in the US where they
have millimeter wave radios. If you look at Google's
pricing for the Pixel, the Pixel 4a (5G), god, so many numbers and letters. That's $100 more just if you
get the millimeter wave version on top of the extra charge for 5G. And Apple is holding the
price on the pro models those are still $1,000 and $1,100 but they are just not willing or able, I guess to eat that much additional cost on the regular models and on the mini. So I'm really conflicted on this because I think in one
way, it's really great that they have increased
the quality so much of the regular models
that they are as good as the pro models were
probably just two years ago. Certainly as the iPhone 10,
maybe as the iPhone 10S.
Probably actually between the iPhone 10S and the iPhone 11 pro. It's remarkable how good that display is, and it's not the same processor and the same 5G millimeter wave in the US and 5G in the rest of the world. But 2020 man, it is just so hard. And the removing the
plug and the headphones I think it's just, again, 2020. It's the worst possible timing for that, because it adds one more burden to people.
And even if it's not a financial burden it's a cognitive burden because
they have to worry about it. And I know like tech geeks are
all, USB-C this, USB-C that, and they would make fun,
I would make fun of Apple for including a USB-A to lightning
cable in previous iPhones because the Mac books have
had USB-C going on five years.
But the truth is most
people don't have Macs. It's still a majority PC market and a majority older PC market that have USB-A type connectors. And Apple has only
supplied USB-C for one year and only on the Pro models. The iPhone 11 Pro is the first one to have a USB-C the lightening cable. And USB-C charging brick in the box. So doing this, changing the cable and taking out the charging brick, not only do you have, maybe you have one from
your Nintendo Switch or from an Android tablet, maybe you have one from another device, but if not a lot of people are gonna be without a charging brick or at least one that doesn't
work or requires an adapter.
But they probably have to just go out and get another charging brick. So I really wish Apple would have put a little bit more money
where their mouth is here in terms of the environment. Like for sure, remove
them from the packaging for people who don't need them but just have a little check box. And I'm saying this orders
haven't gone live yet. So we don't know exactly
what they're gonna do and maybe they can still do this. Maybe they will still do this, but have a little checkbox that
says, I need a power brick.
And then that gets shipped as well. And then people who don't
need it, don't get it. We save all of that e-waste,
all of that extra shipping but the people who really do need it can get it and get a high quality one. They're not sort of running out to the corner store in
the middle of the night getting the cheap discount version that may not be anywhere nearly
as safe as one that they get from a reputable brand
like Apple or Anker. So on the pricing, I still have to think
about it a little bit more, but on the power cable there's still a couple of
days until it pre-orders, but I really hope Apple handles this well. I don't expect it but I really hope they handle it better. ARYMANBHattac2 and this is an all cap. So I'm guessing I have to shout it. "What is the plasticy thing
on the side of the iPhones?" And that's in reference to a small round rectangle
on the bottom side of the US version of the iPhone 12, and that's for millimeter wave.
Millimeter wave requires more RF, more radio-frequency transparency. Previous versions had to
have RF transparency windows I think on four out of the
six sides of the phone. And so you had like the screen
and you had the back glass and then you'd have these various cutouts. It's probably gotten a little bit better but you still have to have more open areas for reception with the high bands than you do for LTE or the
mid or low bands of 5G.
So millimeter wave on the iPhone in the US means they just have to
have that extra cutout to let the signals go in and out. @LangfordGuy, "Why millimeter
wave only for the US models?" And that's just a reality
of the current 5G market. As nascent as the millimeter
wave high band 5G deployments are in the US, they're still way ahead
of most other countries. For two reasons, one is, some countries like Canada haven't even auctioned off the spectrum for millimeter wave yet, that's been pushed out to next year. But other countries have good
enough low band and mid band that they don't seem to feel the need or the hurry to push out high band anywhere as quickly as Verizon and AT&T are doing in the US. Where the the low and mid
bands are far more constrained. And I think ideally mid
band will be so good that a lot of places simply
won't roll out 5G mmWave or they'll do it in very
specific implementations like the cliched stadiums do now.
But just for most of the world it's gonna be an FR1 frequency range one, low and mid-band world for 5G. And China remains to be seen of course, but for now, there's no
reason to do it anywhere other than the US. MaxyJprime on Twitter says, "Since the Canadian iPhone 12s
won't have millimeter wave, if I buy one from the US
will it work in Canada and also down the road when Canada supports millimeter wave?" 5G doesn't roam yet. It's like the early days of LTE, if you get a 5G and you
put a US 5G SIM card in it then you go to Europe,
it won't work at all.
You'd have to get a European
specific 5G SIM card put that in. And then it'll work probably most places, because Apple is supporting
just the widest possible amount of 5G bands that they
can on the iPhone 12. So you should be able to
just get a local SIM card wherever you are, put that in and work with whatever 5G is available in that area if any. Millimeter wave being the exception though because it's US only for now. So if you get a US iPhone
to have millimeter wave in any other country, first I think you'll be
waiting a long, long time. And second it's uncertain whether it'll even work in that country, because the bands are so different. Never buy based on what
might happen in the future only ever buy based on what you have now. So you'll have better LTE. You'll have 5G where it's available.
And in a couple of years you can reassess and there'll
be much better deployment much better network equipment,
and much better 5G modems in whatever you buy in a few years. And as for 5G in general and all the different varieties of that. I've done a whole explain on that, so I'll link to it in the description. And JullianSibi asks on Twitter
also about the $30 discount from AT&T/Verizon on
the iPhone 12, 12 mini. And is that misleading
to advertise the price with those discounts? I think it's just unbecoming. I think John Gruber
used the word unseemly. And I think a company
especially a company like Apple would do better to just
advertise the price most people are going to get. And then note that you can
get an even lower price through Verizon or AT&T, just for clarity, simplicity
to avoid mistakes.
And just to avoid people having a negative feeling about Apple, just put the sticker price on there and then make them feel good
about getting the discount not bad about not getting it. Darius Dunlap on Patreon asks about differences between
the A14 on the iPhone 12 especially iPhone 12 Pro Max. And what we know about the iPad processor. I'm guessing iPad Air processor. "And what do you think that
portends for Apple Silicon Macs presumably coming next month?" As far as we know they're
identical processors right now. The A14 Bionic is in both the iPad Air and all the iPhone 12s. And I did a whole explainer video a deep dive on the A14,
where I addressed this. So I'll link to that in the description but basically Apple wants to be efficient.
So they make a chip that they can scale from the iPhone 12 mini, all the way up to the iPad Air. And, you know, maybe the iPhone, especially the iPhone pros
hit the image signal processor way more frequently, way
harder than the iPad Air does. And maybe the iPad Air because it has a much
bigger thermal envelope can run high-intensity graphics
applications for longer. They can sustain performance
for longer than an iPhone but the chip really is built
to scale between those devices. And in terms of Apple Silicon Macs. I think we're seeing this
generation of Apple Silicon IP, like all the different compute engines and all the different blocks, accelerators, or controllers all of that. And I think that's what we'll
see in Apple Silicon Macs but I would be surprised if we
didn't see dedicated blocks. They've already talked about
hypervisor acceleration and just think about anything that you'd want accelerated on a Mac that would be different
than an iPhone or iPad.
And I think that's the
sort of chip sets we'll see especially in the early
generations of Apple Silicon Macs. Donald Hawk on Patreon
asks, I'm really concerned about putting these MagSafe
magnets in my pocket close to my cards. I think for credit cards, for
anything that's really robust that's meant to last, it'll be fine. I mean we've got magnets and a bunch of other things
on our products these days.
I think for flimsier
implementations, like hotel card keys if we're still using those these days when we get back to using those,
I would be more concerned. But for daily use, especially since Apple
is making a wallet case where presumably, I
mean they've gotta know that people are gonna put
credit cards in there. I don't think it will be a problem for any of those sorts of items. And silverjohnlongs asks, "American bacon or Canadian bacon?" And American bacon,
Canadian bacon is like ham.
It's fine, but it just, it
doesn't have that crispy deeply satisfying bacony bacon taste the way good old fashioned
American sliced bacon does. And if you have any more
questions about bacon or otherwise or just wanna chat in general check out our members only discord, where we talk about sure bacon, coffee, but also iPads, watches, iPhones, Apple Silicon, gear, workflows,
and more basically 24/7. And you can find it at
patrion.com/reneritchie.
And I set that up right after I quit my big media job back in March, right before 2020 happened. And I started this new indie channel because I needed a way, I needed a community to
make these videos better. And this is great. It's so great because there's
a whole preview section where it can share ideas and outlines for videos
before they even get shot.
And sometimes early versions of the videos before they go live. Longer versions of interviews
when I have them available. Like 45 minutes with
iJustine and Walt Mossberg and the full cut of my Apple
iPhone 12 event reactions. And there are even ways to get your name in the description of every
video, even in the credits. So to be more involved in this community and to contribute directly to the creation of these
videos and future projects, like my new podcast with Georgia Dow, just check out patrion.com/reneritchie. Or click on the link in the description. And clicking on that link,
really helps out this channel. For a ton more just a
ton more on iPhone 12, click on the playlist above. I've got videos up on all
the new features comparisons and a lot, a lot more to come.
So click on the playlist
and I'll see you next video..
