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The 5G reviews I have read, once the phones flip to 5G, the battery consumption jumps like crazy. Sure, you get blazing speeds for 30 minutes (exaggerating) but then your battery dies.

I think Apple was wise to sit 5G out this time around. They will probably add 5G in 2020 just say "me too" ... but until the modems can get battery efficient, I am not sure if I want a 5G phone. 2021/2022 maybe.
 
I think the 11 pro is gonna be a beautiful phone. 13% faster LTE speeds is definitely a nice boost. Don’t know why people are so upset with it. Apple continues to produce the nicest phones on the market. We’re way past the days of big excitement leading up to announcement day to see what cool design apple came up with. Hardware has matured. Everything is a rectangle with glass. Now it’s camera, features, and subscriptions. Except for the notch. But I’m very happy with what the 11pro has to offer. I’m on the upgrade program so I’ll be getting it. And I’m pretty excited.

I don't understand the upset at ALL.


For me, I actually picked the iPhone XR over the XS on purpose because of battery life. Apple's lineup was in a weird place; the XR had advantages over the higher end XS.

I have repeatedly regretted my choice to get the XR due to the lack of 'true' portrait mode, and yet, I have not really regretted it because my friends with an XS have more battery anxiety.


Now, the Pro fixed that issue. The battery life improvement is HUGE. It's the reason I declined the XS.

Basically, it's the iPhone XS, except with the XR's battery life, and a wide angle camera, and the normal annual improvements across the board. That's pretty near perfect.

Did I want 5G? Yeah. Did I think it was happening? No. Apple made the right decision. 5G standalone chips have been battery life killers so far and take a ton of space, and no one has been able to bring a 5G SoC to market yet (Samsung just annoucned one for later this year), and Apple probably will need time to bring Intel's tech in house and improve it. Apple made the right decision.

I did want USB-C, but it's not a killer for me yet. I only have one USB-C device in the house (Nintendo Switch) so far.

So yeah.

The 11 Pro had nothing surprising but seems pretty much a perfect product compared to last year.


I'm not upgrading my XR so soon, and I'm looking at going to a three year cycle now, but if next year's iPhone is basically an 11 Pro + 5G and USB-C I'd be really hard pressed not to upgrade.
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yea I dont understand why they left out 5G , I know 5G has not rolled out yet but its called future proofing your device
It's an actual tech issue at the moment.

Chip developers have yet to be able to integrate 5G onto a System-On-A-Chip yet because it's so new. (Though Samsung *just* announced they're going to have one out around the end of the year.)

So right now, smartphone makers have to buy a separate 5G chip and add it to the smartphone. These chips are actually quite big- almost the size of a penny, or a CPU- and use a LOT of power and heat and need an extra antennae (also large).

See this article:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/12/dont-buy-a-5g-smartphone-at-least-not-for-a-while/

So yeah. I think next year 5G will be a good choice. Hopefully Apple can build it into their SoC (whether Intel is ready or they pay Qualcom's licensing) and it won't be a gigantic power drain.

But if Apple had done it this year, it would have been a MASSIVE battery drain and also taken up valuable space in the phone.

Seriously, read the article I just linked to. It's shocking how much space you need in the phone for the current 5G options (a 5G modem and antenna module).

Next year it should be a lot easier I'd bet. Though I wouldn't be shocked if Apple pushes it back out to 2021 because their new 5G division they bought from Intel is still getting up to speed. Then you can complain.
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Intel didn't have a viable 5G modem

It's not just Intel. The ones from Qualcomm are HUGE and cause a ton of battery drain.

Next year smartphones will have 5G modems built in to their SoC and 5G will be a lot more viable. It would have seriously impacted product quality this year.
 
Better to wait until 2020 iPhones with superior Qualcomm radio. Even Huawei is better than Intel radio.
 
Moderator Note:

Quite a few posts discussing the lack of USB-C on the new iPhones were removed as off-topic. If you would like to discuss that topic, please use a relevant thread or create your own.
 
No guarantee they will use in 2020. Sure they are looking to make their Intel purchase work.
There is a guarantee.
Intel do not have 5G modems period.

We're not gonna see the fruits of the Intel acquisition for a few years.
 
No guarantee they will use in 2020. Sure they are looking to make their Intel purchase work.

Well have you looked at what happened with Apple and QCOM in recent months? They came to an agreement and qcom will supply modems again next year and I believe for the next 5 years. That will give Apple time to actually do something useful with Intel's modem division.
 
Faster LTE speeds is great news. What would be even better is stronger and better reception along with better GPS accuracy.
 
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what is the point to buy the new phone when next release will have 5G, finger print reader under new notch-less glass??
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And 5000-10000% slower than 5G..

exactly.. i'm not upgrading until apple releases 5G :)
 
what is the point to buy the new phone when next release will have 5G, finger print reader under new notch-less glass??
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exactly.. i'm not upgrading until apple releases 5G :)

I thought Apple already bought Intel's 5G Division for the modem part.
 
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what is the point to buy the new phone when next release will have 5G, finger print reader under new notch-less glass??
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exactly.. i'm not upgrading until apple releases 5G :)

We got it. We’ve read it within like 1000 threads by now. Some people don’t see the value in the 11 Pro and that’s ok. But do you guys need to remind the rest of us in every thread about it, without sharing any new information? I mean, by now everybody knows that it doesn’t come with 5G and the beloved TouchID. But frankly I don’t care. I don’t need either of those. Everybody has his own motivations and needs, so can we move on already?
 
Man, 13% faster LTE speeds? I now may have to reconsider not upgrading from my Xs...

/sarcasm
 
$600 for trade in of my Xs Max is somewhat of a slap in the face, as well as only $100 for my series 4 watch.

So the only proposition that makes sense is if I want to join the perpetual yearly upgrade crowd by leasing my iPhone. Which I really don't. Still, I'm very sad to not have the latest iPhone any more. That is more of a personal thing, than anything else, but it's still real.

The battery life, and slofies, and wide angle and Night Mode are compelling but are they $600 compelling...

The common sense side of me, knows that these are horrible deals, but here I am still debating if I want to upgrade. What to do!?

Sigh, someone dispense some advice LOL!!!
 
$600 for trade in of my Xs Max is somewhat of a slap in the face, as well as only $100 for my series 4 watch.
...
The common sense side of me, knows that these are horrible deals, but here I am still debating if I want to upgrade. What to do!?

Sigh, someone dispense some advice LOL!!!

if you want to play the yearly upgrade game, and not burn money at the same time, you buy last years model every year.

phones value drop 30-50% in one year, after that the only drop like 10% or something.

I'm thinking, you could have a 1 year old phone every year for less than someone who buys the phone and keeps it for 3-5 years before replacing it with a new phone.
 
yea I dont understand why they left out 5G , I know 5G has not rolled out yet but its called future proofing your device
$600 for trade in of my Xs Max is somewhat of a slap in the face, as well as only $100 for my series 4 watch.

So the only proposition that makes sense is if I want to join the perpetual yearly upgrade crowd by leasing my iPhone. Which I really don't. Still, I'm very sad to not have the latest iPhone any more. That is more of a personal thing, than anything else, but it's still real.

The battery life, and slofies, and wide angle and Night Mode are compelling but are they $600 compelling...

The common sense side of me, knows that these are horrible deals, but here I am still debating if I want to upgrade. What to do!?

Sigh, someone dispense some advice LOL!!!

Stop upgrading your phone every year. There's some advice. You're paying a premium for a nominal increment. Just upgrade to the S when it comes out. You know you'll want it. Does it further you in life to have the latest phone? There's no real advantage man. The owner of our company, a man I greatly respect, has an iPhone 7... and he's literally a millionaire. He could buy a new iPhone every week if he wanted... He's not the only one I know in his tax bracket doing that either. The new camera, the 13% increase in speed... these are just ploys to appeal to your consumerism. You probably won't even notice them and even if you do at first, that will fade. Be smart with your money. Take your partner out to dinner on the money you'd save. Hell treat yourself to something you really want with that money. Trust me, as someone that did it for years... learn from my mistakes. I'd rather have all the cash I wasted. I would have rather gone to Disneyland with my sister when I had the chance instead of buying the iPhone and telling her I didn't have the money to go... What's better, a life experience or having the newest phone for the next 11 months.
 
I think the 11 pro is gonna be a beautiful phone. 13% faster LTE speeds is definitely a nice boost. Don’t know why people are so upset with it. Apple continues to produce the nicest phones on the market. We’re way past the days of big excitement leading up to announcement day to see what cool design apple came up with. Hardware has matured. Everything is a rectangle with glass. Now it’s camera, features, and subscriptions. Except for the notch. But I’m very happy with what the 11pro has to offer. I’m on the upgrade program so I’ll be getting it. And I’m pretty excited.

I’m also very excited, camera and display are enough upgrade that will convince me to sell my XS max and get Pro Max, and A13 is also huge plus in my book.... only thing i’m Upset about is that they killed 3D Touch, I’m been huge fan since 6S and used every iPhone with 3D Touch, got used to it. I don’t know how can I go back and use phone without it... such a revolutionary feature...
 
Its funny how people here think LTE will become irrelevant with 5G... you do realise all the promises about 100% coverage will never come to fruition because of the immense costs associated with it. Most of the rural areas will stay at technology with better penetration/range because nobody will want to invest that much money for such a low population density.
5G most likely will be interesting in metropolitan areas in a couple of years, but for all the rest I expect LTE to stay relevant... which is exactly where I miss high data speeds most

so yeah... this matters.
Agreed. I don't see 5G taking over quite as quickly as LTE. It seems like you need a lot of transmitters close together to make it work. It's almost like a glorified super WiFi or something. In the cities they're like mounting them on light poles nearly every block and I heard that even in residential suburban neighborhoods they might need to do that too, causing an ugly nuisance. That only gets compounded when you consider that many areas that have 5G only have it with one carrier at the moment. Imagine the big four (three now?) and regional carriers having their gear slung from every pole in town. It quickly multiplies out of control. It's basically just WiFi on steroids. No way that makes it to rural areas, which will once again be left behind. I know people in rural areas that still can't even get decent 3G coverage most of the time, much less LTE, and it's important because no broadband company will run a line out to a town with only a few thousand people that is away from a major highway or network route. Many of these people are only offered 56.6K dial-up. Yes, freaking dial-up in 2019. And they only live about 15-20 miles north of me where we have 1Gbps lines. It really kills opportunity in rural areas, forcing people to move and driving down home values. You can't really move if you can't sell your house to get one in the city, increasing the poverty gap since so many jobs and facets of our daily lives are online.
 
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