iPhone 12: As Good as It Gets
I wasn’t even going to buy a new iPhone this year. Even after Apple did their annual iPhone reveal, I was pretty determined to just hold onto my iPhone 11 Pro Max. There was nothing wrong with it, and nothing new that made the new one compelling. That said, there were a couple of little things that got me to jump.
- I was tired of carrying a big phone. Yes, I love and need big screens. I was just tired of carrying them. I use an 11” iPad instead of a 12.9” model for the same reason.
- I wanted to change carriers to see if I could get better reception in the places I routinely traveled. If I was going to change carriers anyway, I figured I just as well go for a new phone with a carrier deal.
I went with an iPhone 12, 64GB, white, on Verizon. I also picked up a white silicon MagSafe Case and a MagSafe charger. After a couple weeks, here are my impressions:
It looks like a winner
I hate to join the bandwagon. But I am just going to have to repeat what everyone else has said. The phones are unmistakably iPhones and they look amazing. That piano black color is striking. For my money, that’s the winner of the iPhone pageant. I’m not sure I have ever seen a better looking iPhone than the black iPhone 12. The only real disappointment in the line is the Product RED model. It’s not red. It is a dark peach. Still, pick any iPhone 12. You’re going to love the way it looks.
The flat edges have a slimming effect. Curved edges jut out to form the curve. That adds unnecessary width to the phone. The 12 feels excellent in the hand. I don’t find the hard edges to be harsh in the hand. There is no sensation of a sharp object digging into the hand.
I have a case, but am going without it for a while. I have AppleCare +. My problem is that I can’t stand the idea of my phone getting micro scratches. It is glass all over. So no matter what side I put on a surface, it is glass rubbing against a hard surface. That is usually wood in my house. It seems insane to purposely place glass on wood. To put it down or pick it up is to scrape it at least a little. That’s going to leave a mark.
Here’s the thing: We perfectionists are just wired to care about all that. I can’t even see the marks unless I really try. So I shouldn’t care. But I do. The average person doesn’t really care. They just put it down on whatever surface there is and get on with it. Those marks will not keep Apple or your carrier from taking back the phone and exchanging it for a new one when the time comes. So we shouldn’t worry about it. Also, if it does get to a point where I need to replace the glass, that is what AppleCare is for. I’m going to try to press on without a case for a while. Wish me luck.
MagSafe and the possibilities
First, don’t get the case thinking it will be easy to put on and take off. It is not. It fits on and off like every other case before it. The magnets are not a factor in how you perceive the case. I do believe the magnets in the case provide extra strength over the magnets that are in the phone. My testing method is non-scientific. It just seems as if the phone with case has more of a magnetic hold than the phone by itself.
You can’t really stick your caseless phone to the fridge. But in the case, you absolutely can do that. The camera bump doesn’t help. With the case, there is no camera bump. But even eliminating the camera bump, it is still not as strong. That said, I believe everyone should adopt my MagSafe charger approach:
With a little double-sided tape, I stuck my charger on the wall next to my bed. Now, I just hang my phone on the wall. That works with or without a case. There is no way it is going to fall off. The phone isn’t heavy enough to break the magnetic pull by itself. It is stronger in the case. But it is plenty strong enough without the case. I find it rather freeing.
I’m thinking about getting one for the office and one for the kitchen. I would never purchase multiple wireless chargers that I couldn’t just hang on the wall and use as an iPhone magnet. Apple has a convenience winner on their hands. But the most exciting part of MagSafe is what third-parties do with it. Magnetic kickstands and Pop Sockets will be just the beginning.
I haven’t tried the wallet, and probably won’t. I don’t trust it. And I am doubtful about its utility. Professional reviewers have shown that it will come off when loading the phone in your pocket. It is not worth the risk of losing your valuable cards. If you want a wallet case, get one that is attached by something more stable than magnets.
5 G-whiz!
5G just got real for me. I was on T-Mobile LTE. It was fine where it was fine, and awful where it wasn’t. There were too many places along my usual rout where it wasn’t. Verizon has clearly spent the money where I live. And I was blown away by the coverage and average speed.
Most of the time, I’m on 5G. Occasionally, it shows LTE. I have yet to lose signal altogether. There are settings in the phone that give you the choice to use 5G all the time when available. That is what I am doing. I don’t want my phone deciding that I will be okay with a slower connection based on what I am doing. I paid for a 5G phone and I want 5G. Battery be damned!
The super-fast 5G Ultra-wide on Verizon is MIA. I checked out the map for NYC and went to those places specifically looking for it. I only briefly saw it once near Madison Square Garden. While walking, I noticed the little symbol came on, then off. I went back but never found it again. This is when you know exactly where to stand and have prayed to Cthulhu. It will be a long time, if ever, before ultra-wideband is a going concern. Sub 6, however, is real.
Some reviewers have cautioned that 5G is not a feature for which you should upgrade. However, I would not have upgraded if my service was satisfactory. I wanted to try Verizon to see if their coverage was better in my area. At that point, it didn’t make sense to avoid getting the iPhone 12. So I got it. And it was. The service is night and day better. is that because of the 5G or because of the coverage area? I don’t know. I can say that I have 5G in most places I go. And it is really fast and solid. I think that is absolutely worth the upgrade. Your milage almost certainly will vary.
Other miscellany that no one cares about but has to be in a review
Take a good look at the display. It’s great. Why do we even bother talking about displays anymore? The only notable thing is that the entire line of numbered iPhones is OLED. The 11 from last year was LCD. This will be a nice improvement from anyone coming from the entry-level phones. Now, the screens are mostly indistinguishable. The Pro has greater max brightness. I have not noticed anyone mentioning this as a real-world problem for the 12.
Stepping down from the 11 Pro Max to the 12, I see no difference. My wife is coming from the 11 to the 12 and she has not mentioned the screen even once. The screens are past good enough so that they don’t really need to be mentioned in a review. If this is your first OLED phone, you will notice some differences. But it will not change your world. This might well be the best screen on a smartphone. And it still doesn’t matter.
The speakers sound just as good as last year’s 11 Pro. They might be the best speakers on a smartphone. And it still doesn’t matter. That said, you really don’t need a bluetooth speaker for your phone unless you are going to use it in the shower. Otherwise, it is loud and clear enough to do any job most people will need from a phone. Let’s move on.
The camera - yes, I’m putting the camera in miscellany. I know this is usually the biggest section of an iPhone review. But I’m not that kind of iPhone user. And I just don’t care. What are you doing with your photos that make the camera so important? It really is good enough to take snaps of your kid, and your dog, and your food. It doesn’t matter at all if some other phone camera does better or worse in some situations. Normal people will love the pictures they take. Geeks that take pictures of their action figures on their desk are just sad. Not interested.
Performance as a pocket computer
The iPhone is a pocket computing appliance. That is how it should be judged in my opinion. I don’t care about its mastery in any one thing. As I have already mentioned, most reviewers treat the camera as the one feature that matters. There was a time when phone calls was the reason people bought phones. I would say that a smartphone is the spiritual successor to the PDA. Perhaps that is the measure of a smartphone’s performance.
This is a question that will not be answered in this review. I believe there is a fundamental disconnect between how professional reviewers rate smartphones and how real people actually use smartphones. You need to consider the Android factor to understand what I mean.
Android is far and away the largest smartphone platform worldwide. It’s not even close. So it is fair to say that the average person uses an Android phone. If we want to know how the average person relates to smartphones, you have to consider what the average person uses. Without digging into brands, we know that the average selling price of android phones is really low: a little over $200 as of 2017. Here is a quote from Android Authority:
Let’s talk about iPhones for a second. Apple set a record last quarter by selling the most iPhones ever: 78.3 million of them with record revenues. But you may also have heard that during that quarter, the average selling price (ASP) of the iPhone was also at a record high of $694. Meanwhile, Android ASPs have been cut in half in the last half dozen years, from around $440 to just over $200. So how is Apple still able to command such high ASPs?
From what I can tell, the basic facts have not changed that much in the last three years. The vast majority of smartphone users are not using any company’s flagship models. They are spending around $200 for a phone. They still consider it way too expensive at that price. All those high-end features in $800 phones, or even $600 phones are simply not a going concern for average smartphone consumers.
iPhones appeal to a particular kind of buyer. They compete with a tiny subset of Android phones: the subset that regular consumers care nothing about. So I am less and less interested in doing lengthy reviews of phones that most people won’t care about. Grant it, the iPhone market is a market unto itself. It is not the average consumer. And most iPhone users are not cross-shopping high-end Android phones. So I really only am interested in comparing iPhones to other iPhones. That gets a little pointless after a while.
That said, the only thing about the iPhone I care about is how it performs as a pocket computing appliance. Given that criteria, there is nothing better. It excels in every relevant category. I don’t give a damn about spec sheets. The camera does way more than a device of this nature needs to accomplish. The same goes for the screen, the sound, the online connectivity, the voice quality, the speakers, the general audio reproduction, and everything else.
I love the iPhone for its role as a Swiss Army knife of my digital world. It is not just my camera, but my mobile photo album on the go. It is my TV on the train, my radio (podcasts), jukebox (music), library, newspaper, answer to random questions, telegraph, calendar, notes, reminders, directory, window and megaphone to the world, and so much more.
That is what the iPhone is to me. It was that last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. The iPhone fits into my desired ecosystem better than any other option. And it has the accessibility I need to make my life easier. So the only question that matters to me is how the current everything machine compares to my previous everything machine.
The answer is that the iPhone 12 is just as good if not better than my previous iPhone. And my previous iPhone was a Pro Max model. This is the first time I feel like I can tell there is a better processor. Everything is that much more instant. As already mentioned, connectivity is noticeably faster. My iPad Pro feels faster when tethered to the phone. Connectivity has an effect on speed because everything your devices do require a connection to the internet. So faster internet makes everything faster.
I cannot complain about any performance metric. It is all faster and smoother and better. I don’t know if it is better enough to justify an upgrade. If I didn’t need to change carriers, I would have never upgraded to this phone. But now that I have, it was worth it.
Furthermore, I am experiencing the kind of improvement that I can’t guarantee everyone will have. The carrier and network technology where I am have made this upgrade hugely worthy. I have no idea how much of this benefit is transferable. I can say that now that I am rocking a smaller phone, I have started carrying my phone again.
if your iPhone is 2 years old, this is a worthy upgrade. If you are coming from any Android phone, I suspect it will blow you away. And if your are happy with your iPhone from last year, hang on for another year unless there is no cost to upgrading.
And with that, I believe I am done writing review-style articles about smartphones. Check in with me in about a year to see how that prediction holds up..
David Johnson