Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone 12 Mini: Five Rumored Features You Might Be Giving Up
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
"It is essentially able to map the environment around you at the photon level in nanosecond speeds."
I've seen this line in many articles regarding the LIDAR... some marketing weenie tried to sound like a physicist and I'm sure they're thinking it's brilliant, when in fact it comes off as sounding like a 🤡
I've seen this line in many articles regarding the LIDAR... some marketing weenie tried to sound like a physicist and I'm sure they're thinking it's brilliant, when in fact it comes off as sounding like a 🤡
LIDAR is cool and will probably have many useful consumer uses in the near future, but at the moment, it's going to be more useful to pro/niche apps that people such as myself would be willing to get a second work iPhone or iPad for. Having it on some but not necessarily all phones will also give devs a chance to come up with ideas for its use when it does eventually come to everyone.
True maybe down the line but now I think they could do some great things with portrait on the iPhone. Selfies are good but they could become the clear best with LIDAR.
I'm focused on what I'll get with a ≈$700 128GB Mini rather than give up by not spending $300 (43%) more for a $1,000 128GB Pro that's much larger than I want. My beloved original SE's discount-replaced battery is beginning to fade again, the Lightning port has been intermittent for awhile, and now so is its Touch ID. My wife's original SE is doing okay with less heavy use, even with iOS 14. We paid more for 64GB when 16GB was the base.
The Mini will continue my one-handed use in portrait mode, adding a sixth row of four icons. In landscape mode, I expect it'll give 1080 x 1920 HD plus 210 pixel (0.44" @ 475ppi) wide black bars on either side for thumbs (2340 pixels wide total). Wireless charging will help prevent wearing out the Lightning port, for which I have many accessories, but I'll still need it for CarPlay. Having sub-6 5G for T-Mobile here helps a bit and it'll be the first 802.11ax client on our home network.
If there can be only two, I'm happy with the second camera being ultra-wide for group photos where I can't back up any further to get everyone in. I can pinch to zoom or do so in post processing, but I can't take in more field of view than the lens.
I'd rather the Mini be a bit thicker for increased battery capacity, but it is what it is. I'm waiting anxiously.
The Mini will continue my one-handed use in portrait mode, adding a sixth row of four icons. In landscape mode, I expect it'll give 1080 x 1920 HD plus 210 pixel (0.44" @ 475ppi) wide black bars on either side for thumbs (2340 pixels wide total). Wireless charging will help prevent wearing out the Lightning port, for which I have many accessories, but I'll still need it for CarPlay. Having sub-6 5G for T-Mobile here helps a bit and it'll be the first 802.11ax client on our home network.
If there can be only two, I'm happy with the second camera being ultra-wide for group photos where I can't back up any further to get everyone in. I can pinch to zoom or do so in post processing, but I can't take in more field of view than the lens.
I'd rather the Mini be a bit thicker for increased battery capacity, but it is what it is. I'm waiting anxiously.
My take: Battery life should no longer be a talking point in 2020! The Mini was going to be a Day 1 purchase for me (and still might be), but if this phone turns out to have the modern equivalent of the 6S battery life, I might be too traumatized to subject myself to that again. Fingers tightly crossed.
Same for me. Even the 1960mAh battery of my 7 is mediocre at best (and I have replaced it in April), and the 6S was known for having a really underwhelming battery life. Their 3D touch gimmick was more important for them than good battery life, so the battery had actually shrinked compared to the iPhone 6. One of the reasons (together with lousy 16GB, lack of OIS and no IP67) why I went straight for the 7.
I really hope the rumored 2227mAh of the 12 Mini will be sufficient for 1 day of extensive or 2 days of moderate usage. The A14 will be very efficient, I won't use the 5G modem either (goes for most users I assume) so the only major factor will be the display. LCD vs OLED and DPI are important factors here, since 5.4" is not that much bigger than 4.7". So a roughly 20% bigger battery with a display draining about 10% more power and the CPU/GPU needing less, hmmm... 15-25% runtime increase in the end compared to a (new) iPhone 7/8/SE2, maybe? Would be okay for me I guess.
I really hope the rumored 2227mAh of the 12 Mini will be sufficient for 1 day of extensive or 2 days of moderate usage. The A14 will be very efficient, I won't use the 5G modem either (goes for most users I assume) so the only major factor will be the display. LCD vs OLED and DPI are important factors here, since 5.4" is not that much bigger than 4.7". So a roughly 20% bigger battery with a display draining about 10% more power and the CPU/GPU needing less, hmmm... 15-25% runtime increase in the end compared to a (new) iPhone 7/8/SE2, maybe? Would be okay for me I guess.
WOO Thanks. Mine was auto and Edge is set to dark, but it was still light. Dark made it dark
I see nothing wrong with it having both Face ID and Touch ID in the side button. Lord knows it's already expensive enough to cover the cost.
Just curious, how could one dissable or not use the 5G modem and select/use the LTE 4G instead for example?
If you switch to flight mode, there is no cellular service at all afaik.
I am not a modem expert, don't know if 4G and 5G are getting realized by the same chip, but most users don't have or need 5G contracts at all, I am perfectly fine with my 15GB of LTE and would rather pick a better coverage/range (Germany is bit struggling here) than even higher speeds (for what? I have Wifi and iPad/Mac to stream movies etc.) anytime. You can already toggle between 4G and 3G in the celluar settings, thus not using 4G at all even if you contract allows that. I assume the same will be the case for 5G. Also constant auto-switching between two bands drains additional battery.
And yes, flight mode kills everything (minus GPS). You can manaually re-enable Wifi and BT and keep Celluar off.
And yes, flight mode kills everything (minus GPS). You can manaually re-enable Wifi and BT and keep Celluar off.
Yes, this is my major peeve with apple, make the phone 1mm thicker and put a bigger battery in the phone ffs.
The 5.4 inch iphone 12 is properly the most innovative iphone in years .
6-SE2 like form but no bezels or home button is the perfect balance between actually having a legible display for modern apps and a non phablet phone you can actually use one handed.
First of all, thanks for the information @Rashy . Much appreciated. I'm in the same boat regarding the use cases.
If your cell carrier contract allows to "toggle" between 4G and 3G for example, where exactly could I find that option if I had it?
I can't find it under my mobile data / provider, so I guess I'm SOL.
Setting path on my german iPhone:
Einstellungen > Mobiles Netz > Datenoptionen (2nd item) > Sprache & Daten (1st item)
Allowing these options:
That's on iOS 13.x (haven't moved to 14 yet, will do this weekend) with Vodafone.
Einstellungen > Mobiles Netz > Datenoptionen (2nd item) > Sprache & Daten (1st item)
Allowing these options:
- 4G, VoLTE on
- 4G, VoLTE off
- 3G (only)
That's on iOS 13.x (haven't moved to 14 yet, will do this weekend) with Vodafone.
Last edited:
Oh yeah, I'd love to have both! FaceID for when my hands are dirty/wet/inside gloves, TouchID for other times.
Dankeschön 👍
Found it, so it’s on iOS 14.0.1 too 😅
Didn‘t think there were more options / setting when it stated „data roaming off“ on the mobile data screen.
Boy howdy was I wrong! The article was correct. And I'm ordering the iPhone 12 Max on Friday with 256 gigs. And I was wrong about 5G around my home. It's going to be solid in every direction for miles and miles. (Southern California kind of a no-brainer now that I think of it.)
But, 5mm high speed 5G? I saw Verizon's map. A tiny red dot in the middle of San Diego, and a tiny red dot up in L.A. are the only places that's going to be available in Southern California.
But, 5mm high speed 5G? I saw Verizon's map. A tiny red dot in the middle of San Diego, and a tiny red dot up in L.A. are the only places that's going to be available in Southern California.