Apple to Wait Until at Least 2020 to Release 5G iPhones

[bn-7bc]

Apple has always waited a year or two after new cell / mobile tech comes out to get the 2nd generation tech before putting it in their phones and it's never hurt them (past 1st generation tech - 4G if memory serves, had power consumption problems that was flagged in reviews at the time...but the 2nd gen 4G tech didn't, which is what Apple used, good choice on their part).

5G in particular seems much more of a benefit to providers (who want to compete with cable / DSL with it with the extra speed and user number capacity) than with users (assuming you're not needing to download massive files instantly onto your iPhone). There was a real user benefit with 4G with streaming video etc., but for most users I doubt they'll notice 5G. JMHO...

Well at least here in Norway that will not wor, because all aur broadband is uncapped (usage wise) not so for mobile data plans tho, and ftth is rolling out in more and more places (most often by incombant cable operators upgrafing ther tiered old coax and wishing to future proof. But I realize that this sadly isn’t the case everywhere esp the US, sothe temtatio to replace fixed broadband with 4G/5G might be very different ther

 

[NT1440]

Can somebody tell me what they are missing that comes with 5G?

Instant gratification, something the world is clearly lacking these days

 

[tromboneaholic]

Can somebody tell me what they are missing that comes with 5G?

Right now? Thicker phones that need an even bigger battery apparently...

 

[bn-7bc]

I have a hard time thinking of possible benefits 5G has over 4G for consumers. What would I do on the go that requires such speed in the next three years?

Lover latency for one, sr least acording to spec (down to 1ms, so lets say 15 for the usual spec vs real world gap) which is still a 50%reductipn from anything I’ve ever seen on 4G. For a real worl comparison (ok just one datapoint so the usual caveats apply) from my hone internet to a router atan ix at gardemoen (nix)) i Get an rtt of 9ms, from several placec arround town including right otside my appartment tje best i can get is arrounf 40ms (iirc the router in guestion is coogles peering connection so I doubt it is an underpowered box). If the rtt on mobile could be braught down to 15 ms it would be allmost as using my home internet connection when using moblile (ok data caps etc) but at least I would stopp cursing aditional rtts for getting pictutres afs etc and hence screwing up layout an my zoomong (bad eysight so zooming is allmost always a must for me even on an ipad qnd sadly glades and contacts dont help)

 

[Swift]

I will upgrade only in 2020 then.

The areas in which 5g will even be available will be limited. There is a lot of capital investment, more than just putting new transmitters in the cell towers. Small network devices will complete 5G. It will be a while before they get the bugs out. There may be many bugs in the first code, because of the many more points of entry. 4G will be something phones revert back to most of the time anyway. I remember my iPhone 5, I think, the first 4G phone I had. A year after it "started," most of the time I was still in 3G at least half the time. The iPhone 6 was the era it was fully deployed.

 

[bn-7bc]

I think the big 5G win will come when all 3G and 4G is turned of (3G wil be gone here in Norway by 2020 no date for 4G) and all thise freqyencies get cinsolidated ito one large resource, so wi can use lower capacity longer range blocks in less populated areas and shorte range blocs (higher frequencies and eider channels) in urban areas without the MNOs needing to carv up ther aloted frequncy blocks berwen 2 or 3 diferen radio networks,

 

[The Game 161]

Wouldn't say this is a big deal as 4G is fine as it is anyway....won't change how i use my phone and in UK I doubt anybody but EE will take advantage from it early on anyway

 

[bn-7bc]

Hmm i seem to remember apple hiereing a lot of rf engeneers a while back, ant with their ongoing paranr spat with qualcomm over 4G, might Apple be developing ther own ip an chips for 5G, but not beeing shore abot finishing in tim for next years line up. It might just be the the farstIPhone with 5G is the first IPhone with apples own 4G/5G chip (to be purly 5G when the time is right) and no more patent payments to anyone on that chip

 

[Mac'nCheese]

So, lies and more lies?
[doublepost=1543872131][/doublepost]

I doubt you’re actually even getting LTE speeds on your phone, few people are.

What lies?

 

[iGeek2014]

Wouldn't say this is a big deal as 4G is fine as it is anyway....won't change how i use my phone and in UK I doubt anybody but EE will take advantage from it early on anyway

And given how fast 4G LTE can be on EE in certain areas (even on my XR) I’d be in no rush to ‘upgrade’ to a 5G capable device!

 

[The Game 161]

And given how fast 4G LTE can be on EE in certain areas (even on my XR) I’d be in no rush to ‘upgrade’ to a 5G capable device!

Agreed. I get about 125MB at work with EE. Most areas it's between 30-80 so all good really.

 

[Michael Goff]

What lies?

I was supposed to have massively faster speeds coming from 3G to 4G, yet that hasn’t been the experience I’ve had at all.

 

[ckhris1613]

Classic Apple. Be the last one on the block to show up to the party, and charge the highest price for the honor.

Every product that could be out in 2019 is now pushed to 2020. Every other company will beat Apple to the punch.

"Think Different. Act much later."

They have to see how Samsung does it first then come out with domething less and say its the best

 

[jeremiah256]

........more than fast enough for anything a phone would need YOU to do,
I use my phone a lot for hotspot and as a mobile electrical engineer it means my 'office' goes with me. I can download firmware upgrades for my equipment, tech manuals and images, at the same time as other net related activities like emails, Safari and Dropbox syncing.

Exactly. And I think even most casual users underestimate how liberating 4G/LTE streaming has been.

In 2011, before 4G arrived on the iPhone, I suspect most of us physically carried around large files. Holders for our CD collection in the car have been replaced by Apple Music and Spotify. Binders with our school notes are now kept in OneNote or Notify. We can retrieve photos and videos from a decade or more ago from the cloud that don't exist physically.

Next year, any profession or business that still has to deal with dragging around physical media because of speed and capacity limitations will start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. If Apple is not going to be a part of that solution in 2019, as a business or professional, it might not be a good business decision to pay a premium price for a device that will never be able to take advantage of the 5G capabilities that may be coming to your area or being deployed to areas you visit.

 

[tooloud10]

The carriers went from charging for minutes to charging for data. They stopped subsidizing phones and adding the price to the monthly bill. Customers are not getting more for less, however.

Even though it's become accepted to use the word "subsidized", we were always paying for the phones. Anyway, the same thing that happened to minutes will happen to data as it becomes trivially easy for them to provide hundreds of gigabytes of data to people that don't even need it.
[doublepost=1543881488][/doublepost]

That's Verizon's 3g which is using ancient cdma tech.

So IOW, "3G".

Here is what I got with tmobile's 3g, well 3.75G.

Right, I would expect you'd get faster speeds by using a better technology than 3G. I'm hardly the first person to wonder why 3G speeds set to have suffered over the years.

 

[steve333]

5G should never happen. Cell towers on every block is not acceptable

 

[techwhiz]

The first "real" 5G deployments will be for fixed internet.
Can anyone give me a real reason why it matters? You can't use 4G without hitting a data cap. There are no sites that deliver data even a 4G speeds.

It's nothing more than bragging rights and a check box on a marketing form.
They are no real requirements for a handset.

 

[tromboneaholic]

Anyway, the same thing that happened to minutes will happen to data

Correct, it will be replaced by another item on the bill so the carrier can make a profit.

 

[Michael Goff]

5G should never happen. Cell towers on every block is not acceptable

Could you elaborate on cell towers in every block?

 

[Wide opeN]

iPhone Xs series doesn't have full 4G reception so it'll likely be 2020 until iPhones get full 4G with switchback to premium Qualcomm radio.

What do you it doesn't have "full 4G reception!?"

 

[mi7chy]

What do you it doesn't have "full 4G reception!?"

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ing-some-iphone-xs-and-xs-max-owners.2145332/

 

[Abazigal]

Exactly. And I think even most casual users underestimate how liberating 4G/LTE streaming has been.

In 2011, before 4G arrived on the iPhone, I suspect most of us physically carried around large files. Holders for our CD collection in the car have been replaced by Apple Music and Spotify. Binders with our school notes are now kept in OneNote or Notify. We can retrieve photos and videos from a decade or more ago from the cloud that don't exist physically.

Next year, any profession or business that still has to deal with dragging around physical media because of speed and capacity limitations will start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. If Apple is not going to be a part of that solution in 2019, as a business or professional, it might not be a good business decision to pay a premium price for a device that will never be able to take advantage of the 5G capabilities that may be coming to your area or being deployed to areas you visit.

Thing is - 5g isn’t going to let you stream your music any more quickly.

The problem still stands - unless carriers are willing to offer true unlimited 5g data plans with no strings attached, the benefits of that improved speed seem of limited benefit to me. Sure, my websites and social media sites might load a split second faster here and there, but I am not going to be consuming any more than I previously was.

 

[Macintoshrumors]

Classic Apple. Be the last one on the block to show up to the party, and charge the highest price for the honor.

Every product that could be out in 2019 is now pushed to 2020. Every other company will beat Apple to the punch.

"Think Different. Act much later."

Apple has said they have no intention of being first in everything. They take their time to do things right. Apple tool their time with lte, smart move on their part to wait till thr kinks of 5g are ironed out. If apple waits Till their devices are running on 5g smoothly, while samsung jumps the gun, people will complain. If apple adopts early verisons of 5g, people will comllain about their devices messing up and getting 3 hours of battery life. Apple cant win even if they take the smarter approach.

 

[H2SO4]

Apple has said they have no intention of being first in everything. They take their time to do things right. Apple tool their time with lte, smart move on their part to wait till thr kinks of 5g are ironed out. If apple waits Till their devices are running on 5g smoothly, while samsung jumps the gun, people will complain. If apple adopts early verisons of 5g, people will comllain about their devices messing up and getting 3 hours of battery life. Apple cant win even if they take the smarter approach.

Yes they can. They have a choice. I have a switch that says ‘enable 4G’. I can choose to use it.
If it sucks, I go back to 3G.
That reasoning doesn’t wash.
[doublepost=1543895234][/doublepost]

The first "real" 5G deployments will be for fixed internet.
Can anyone give me a real reason why it matters? You can't use 4G without hitting a data cap. There are no sites that deliver data even a 4G speeds.

It's nothing more than bragging rights and a check box on a marketing form.
They are no real requirements for a handset.

You can’t use it without hitting a data cap?
I can’t even begin to fathom how that makes any sense.
A 6GB update on a 4G connection is the same size on a 5G connection. I don’t hit the cap if I don’t hit the cap.

 

[jeremiah256]

Thing is - 5g isn’t going to let you stream your music any more quickly.

The problem still stands - unless carriers are willing to offer true unlimited 5g data plans with no strings attached, the benefits of that improved speed seem of limited benefit to me. Sure, my websites and social media sites might load a split second faster here and there, but I am not going to be consuming any more than I previously was.

Even ignoring the professional advantages and staying with a regular use case, it allows us to do more things at once. I no longer drive long distances as much as I used to, but streaming music, using Waze, and providing internet access to two iPads while on the road is not an uncommon scenario. And although I understand most members of this site live in the United States, there are many places overseas where larger data plans are very economical.