it's finally here the first 5g iphone so unless you missed the announcement apple's new iphone
12 lineup will have 5g capabilities but what does that actually mean for everyday users and
how will it change the rate of 5g deployment stick around
hey everyone welcome back to today in tech i'm Juliet Beauchamp and i'm here as always with
macworld senior writer michael simon as well as computer world executive editor ken Mingis so like
i said guys you know unless unless the two of you were living under rocks i'm sure i'm positive that
you guys saw the new iphone announcement and there's a lot of new i had features
i had i had a choice but i watched it for sure yeah and so there's a lot of new and exciting
features coming to the iphone 12 and we can go over some of those are briefly but i think
probably one of the biggest and most exciting developments for you know mobile
phones smartphones for mobile development in general is of course 5g the next generation
of wireless so can we go over if this sounds like a suspiciously like a verizon advertisement i was
just going to say i enjoyed the verizon commercial with a little bit of apple thrown in there yeah
it was that was um i don't know just very sleazy and very unapplicable it was yeah
really they clearly had had to work with verizon and att and i guess not t-mobile
to get there specifically verizon because um they usually charge more for their bands so
to speak to get their bands um hooked up with the 5g modem most android phones are
100 more for millimeter wave if you get it through verizon and apple's not doing that
well as such uh the lower phones are thirty dollars more for whatever reason um as we learned
not from apple but by by going to the iphone order page if you order an unlocked iphone 12
with 5g of course you can you can't get it without it's 700 uh iphone 12 mini it's 729
if you order it through verizon and att through apple you know pick the i have verizon box you
get a special carrier discount of thirty dollars which that's what that was i saw
that on the order side i wonder why t is doing something similar to the same thing yes they both
have it t-mobile does not so you've got to pay 729 through t-mobile and it's six it brings it
down to the advertised price of 699 which is just like i expect that from not to point fingers but
i'm just going to throw out names of samsung lg they work a lot closer with the carriers
and the carriers dictate more of those terms for better or worse apple from the beginning you know
they don't really do that yes it was exclusive to att or singular in the very beginning but
recently you know for the last i don't know how many releases 678 you know they say this is it
this is the price this is what you're paying and you know the carriers do their bogo stuff and the
line stuff but that's their own stuff this is on apple's website they're advertising it as a
carrier discount through 18t and verizon and it's very surprising yeah you know to to juliet i just
want to get back to the 5g thing for one second in terms of what it's going to change and i i
think the answer did i get off topic well you no no no no you're on topic but i you know the
the the the initial question is i have access to grand canyon yes you do let me pull you back in
let me pull you back in no but in terms of like okay so i of course you know image didn't getting
one of the new iphones the 5g part of it is not really a big part of the equation because i
i guess maybe educated consumer understand that the 5g networks that are out there the access
that i will have is not what's coming you know i mean what do you what what carrier do you have
at t okay so there is there is a nationwide you know in in big giant air quotes a nationwide 5g
network on all three carriers right now att has one mixed with millimeter wave in some
places t-mobile was the first they came out with theirs last year and it's it's the widest they
cover about 250 million people so they say and verizon at the apple event just announced their
you know nationwide network it's pretty spotty based on the map that they have on their website
and it's mixed in with that millimeter wave stuff which they're expanding but it's
very limited and you're right 5g right now is is is it's not a it's not a great robust network
and if you don't have a plan that supports it which is one of the newer unlimited plans on one
of these carriers you're gonna pay more because like i i looked mine up so i have an old verizon
uh i have a 12 gig or 10 gig i forget the plan but i've had it for years and you get kind of
grandfathered into those plans as they you know they're constantly changing these things around
and offering new plans but they don't force you to switch just like cable you know you you get
kind of grandfathered into those old plans but you don't get any of the new stuff so if i want 5g i
got to dump that plan sign on to an unlimited plan which is going to cost me like 50 extra months
yeah i think that's you know this is i clearly the the carriers are going to use
the the advent of 5g the arrival of 5g to extract more money from customers you know yeah they keep
saying that they're not but they are you know it is included but you have to have one of the
newer unlimited plans which for a nominal fee yeah exactly you know but but you know to your another
one of the points i think you were making juliet is that now that apple's on the scene i mean this
doesn't surprise anyone we've all known that a 5g iphone was coming no you know assumed that
it was coming uh for a year or two you know there was even some talk there might be one next year i
don't know that the networks especially in this era of pandemic and everything that's going on
could be rolling it out any quicker i don't think they were waiting for apple to arrive with the 5g
verizon was because they just announced theirs on tuesday well that's why they
wanted to wait for the announcement okay they wanted to wait for the apple you know
commercial to get involved but maybe other than verizon i don't think that that you know
it will have an effect there are a lot of iphone users yeah i mean that they're on
board but not immediately yeah so the number of devices that can access a 5g network is going to
double by the end of the year there's no other i mean i don't have hard and fast numbers but
assuming apple sells 30 to 40 million iphone 12 between in the holiday quarter that's about
probably how many devices are i mean smartphones are out there now so it's going to roughly double
and that's a you know it's huge so it's bringing it mainstream but as you say ken i don't know that
they can do this much quicker the spectrum has to be there the the work has to be there and you know
let's face it it has to be monetarily advantageous to these carriers and i can invest in something
that you know isn't going to pay off and until there's a heavy interest from consumers to buy
these plans these newer plans and to get four 5g they're going to go at the pace that they're going
well it's the tip go ahead julian sorry yeah i'm curious from maybe for like an everyday consumer
you know if your iphone is due for an upgrade and you're interested and interested in upgrading i
know i have family members who they're like iphone 7s and 8s are just on their last legs they're
ready to go is the iphone 12 you're gonna want the newest and greatest so is getting a 5g enabled
phone you know whether you're getting you know the new google pixel or the new samsung phone or
you're getting the new iphone is it sort of you know an edge a 5g insurance policy knowing that
you know one day one day within you know the next you know standard two-year contract of my phone
or like you know two-year payoff period i will be able to use those 5g speeds for sure and some
some get it now like if i had t-mobile i could get i you know i've tested them they're not
great it's that sub six gigahertz network and it's still being built out and it's about you know 50
faster than lte it's it's you know it's it's there is it worth paying for if you don't get it already
probably not um is it worth rushing out to buy an iphone for that no that said the iphone 12
is is very nice has a lot of great features it's uh you know so if you're upgrading if you're on
the upgrade program from last year go ahead if you have a seven or eight or ten yeah all by all means
um the 5g is nice to have it's future proof you know i i was surprised that apple went so heavy
into it like they were really pushing this is it 5g that that high speed model that was strictly 5g
they were all about it yeah i kind of wondered about that too because i i do think there's a
bit of a possibility that people will be getting these phones because apple has made such a big
deal about it expecting blazing fast incredible you know coverage etc uh and they're not going
to get that you know depending on where they are and i mean i get that apple again in tandem with
with verizon wanted to play this up it is a big deal i think it's important for them to
talk about it but i think a lot of people who think they're going to get this new phone and
suddenly their life is going to change you know maybe disappointed and now in six months or a year
you know to to your to your original point i wouldn't buy a phone now wasn't 5g enabled
because it is it is what's coming sure me yeah maybe you would how about a 3g would you buy a 3g
that's a little you're you know yeah it's a little different okay the jump from 3g to 4g was massive
the jump from 4g to 5g right now is you know okay it's gonna take some time if somebody had
400 bucks to spend they wanted to buy an iphone se or 500 bucks to spend and want to buy an iphone xr
i wouldn't dissuade them i don't think you're going to miss out on too much in the next two
to three years and then by the time you know a couple years from now then you can upgrade to
if i you won't be able to not you know i mean i criticized samsung last year quite a bit for
releasing these ridiculously expensive 5g phones they were 1500 bucks and up um they were you know
a lot and they and they played them up as these big giant you know uh luxury devices and they were
now i'm wondering maybe that was the right tack to take because you're selling that phone to an
enthusiast someone who knows what they're getting and why they're getting apple is saying okay 5g is
here it's all over their website and like my dad called me up and asked me like well what do i do
i'm like well you don't do anything because unless you want to spend another 60
a month he has an old plan too he has a two gig plan like they don't even have that anymore and
like unless you want to spend a lot more a month you're not buying this phone for for 5g now listen
most parents don't have access to a you know a macro of expert so what are they supposed to
do they go out and buy a 5g phone and they wonder why it's so different from the last phone they had
that's exactly right most people most of the time are going to be on lte and that's i think too
what's important to remember about i mean 5g is going to be it's going to be really fast and
it's going to be great you know if you know we're fortunate enough to live in more populated cities
but 5g is going to be huge for rural communities and if maybe i mean we we were told lte was going
to be huge for our community so allegedly 5g is going to be very beneficial to rural communities
but if you know you don't have millimeter wave in rural communities yet you're probably better off
working off of you know wi-fi so if i have a 5g phone you're better off working off of wi-fi at
the very least if you're in a populated city too because if i've got a 5g enabled phone i'm working
from home all day long not everyone is fortunate enough to be in that position but you know what's
the difference between t-mobile speeds for example to you know your run-of-the-mill wi-fi plan
if i'm at home they're pretty close assuming run-of-the-mill wi-fi is about 50 megabits per
second yeah t-mobile delivers about twice that you know okay but but we should note the wi-fi
you're more likely if you've got a you know a lot excuse me a lot of bandwidth on your wi-fi you're
likely to see better speeds there than you would even on 5g i mean maybe uh 5g that's that's one of
the benefits is that it has tremendous bandwidth in fact the millimeter wave stuff that verizon's
deploying the best use of that is going to be if we ever get back to like you know stadiums and
concerts and ball ballparks in inside of those areas where you have 50 000 people and you know
20 000 of them are on verizon you'll be able to connect to 5g and send it send things and
and text and send videos and images uh super fast because the bandwidth is tremendous on 5g
i did notice a lot of caveats sprinkled throughout the apple thing you know you're you know about
like in these particular conditions this is going to be amazing the whole yeah i know it's next time
and that's what we're here for the high school the high speed mono [ __ ] in hannah had i don't know
in in peak times in optimal conditions related but uh different i did notice that
uh the new phones have wi-fi six they didn't people care about that the old ones did too
okay that's not new okay i mean i care because i have a y56 router if you that's that's more
future proofing they're starting to come out now the prices are starting to come down i i spent
a ridiculous amount of money on mine but i i i love it and i would i wanna
i wouldn't have it any other way but uh wi-fi six is it's awesome and once
those things reach like the i don't know it's like like the cheaper like the google wi-fi is
wi-fi five still the uh amazon just just came out with euro uh wi-fi six like they're reaching the
the lower levels a couple years once that comes out wi-fi six is a pretty big jump over wi-fi
five or ac as they used to call it now they finally got into smart uh nomenclature okay
i have to ask real quick because i know we have to go soon but uh i'm not a dad
but i and i'm not on a two gig plan but if i was choosing between an iphone pro and an iphone pro
max iphone 12 pro 12 pro max you mean the two pro michael the two pros yeah what would you choose
i've got an iphone 11 pro max now personally i go big or small uh well i mean it depends on what you
want they're practically the size ones yeah well they're not the the pro max apple apple did some
some things there and it's it's surprising they it has a 5x optical zoom versus 4x which is not huge
but it's something and the wide-angle lens has a better low-light sensor so you're you're taking
better photos in in darkness than you would with the pro they're small little subtle things but
you know if you you can handle the size i would definitely go for the the pro max because you're
getting a little better camera for 100 bucks better screen uh bigger screen better camera
i personally want the the smaller one because that's just too big i i've tested
all these phones these these ultras s20 ultra note2 they just they're too big i've had it
i i i like that apple came out with that mini because that's the direction we should be going go
go go lower backwards yeah well that's that's actually where i'm at because i've had i mean
i can go slightly larger or slightly smaller and i had the iphone 10 and that to me felt like the
perfect size in the hand you know and then i went back to the larger phone and i i'm really
dithering as to what uh you know whether to go pro if you think that's perfect then the 6.1 is going
to be it's basically the same size because they trim those bezels so it's it's basically the same
as the 5.8 inch uh 10. they're extraordinarily similar we're talking about like tenths of a
millimeter between them all right so we'll have to tune in next week to see what i get then
well i'm on the edge of my seat i know you are i'm sure everyone is i'm i'm getting the 12 non pro
um it's a little you know it's a hundred dollars more than last year which to be expected because
it has the oled screen it has the 5g and it has both flavors of 5g the millimeter wave
and the sub 6. you know apple could have maybe should have uh cut that off at the pro had the
probing millimeter wave and the non not v and then that might have been a you know
they might have been able to bring it down to 7.49 it's fine um it's not you know it's not
it's still a good price and then the mini slides in at that uh 699 slash 729 price
so after you know the pricing is solid because i've seen on android you know these things get
very expensive with 5g and also cool is that the displays are identical now like it's not
yeah i noticed that they did a really good job everything's led right everything's all that
ended the same oled like they could have had the pro display xdr and then the pro display
retina hd or something and you know tweak stuff they didn't it's the same across the board when
they're gorgeous i mean they're the best uh best the best screens in the business they're
they're very nice what color do you like on the phones ah that blue is really nice both of them
yeah the blue pro and the blue none pro they're they're that kind of hue i don't know what you
call they call it pacific flu whatever that means i guess it's like the ocean it's sort of like dark
tealy blue yeah it's it's they're they're nice okay good now now i feel informed from the mac
world expert himself well thank you both so much for calling that gets an asterisk too by the way
thank you so much as always it's really i think you know i we talk about 5g so much here on
the channel and i think 5g was 2020 was sort of billed as 5g's landmark year it seems like that's
not really happening but exciting to see 5g we do have all three all three major carriers sure sure
nationwide networks that's something that is something listen once apple does it it's a thing
maybe i should see what 2021 brings i'll be a little less skeptical i'll give them a little
more credit thank you both so much as always for calling and joining me and thank you all
so much for watching this episode of today in tech if you liked this video be sure to give
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about 5g is you know the iphone announcement really going to push you to buy a 5g phone let us
know or maybe it's doing the opposite you're going to hang on to your lte phone for a few more years
let me know in the comments below thanks again for watching and i'll see you next time