Apple announces new iPhone 12 family with 5G and MagSafe

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  iPhone 12 Pro.

Today, Apple announced the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max, all with 5G wireless capability. Each of the phones is a metal and glass sandwich with flat sides that are very reminiscent of the iPhone 4. The iPhone 12 and 12 Mini are aluminum, while the Pro line is stainless steel.

The iPhone 12 has a 6.1-inch display-the same size as the iPhone 11-but the body is 15 percent smaller, 11 percent thinner, and 16 percent lighter than last year's iPhone 11. The iPhone 12 mini is 5.4 inches, the 12 Pro is 6.1 inches, and the 12 Pro Max is 6.7 inches. The screen are all 60Hz OLED displays, and Apple has teamed up with Corning to make a new display cover material called a "Ceramic Shield." Apple claims it is tougher than any other smartphone glass.

5G connectivity is a headline addition to the new iPhones. 5G has been hyped up by the carriers as the next big thing in smartphones. The quick primer is that there are two kinds of 5G: a potentially very fast "mmWave" network (Verizon calls this "Ultra Wideband") that is short-range, has poor signal characteristics and is hard to roll out, and a "sub-6GHz" 5G, which is closer to an iterative step of 4G, with better signal characteristics and a better shot of a world-wide rollout but with less of a revolutionary speed increase.

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