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Latest iPhone 12 Rumor Roundup: What You Need to Know About Apple’s 2020 iPhones
The iPhone 12 is likely to feature a completely new design, 5G connectivity, and plenty of other changes to make it one of the most innovative phones Apple has released in years. Here’s what we think we know so far.
While we’re still months away from Apple’s anticipated iPhone 12 launch, rumors and predictions are starting to accumulate at a fever pitch. And if those rumors are true, we’ll be seeing no less than four new iPhone 12 models launch later this year, and we have the details here.
It’s worth noting Apple has yet to confirm any details about its 2020 iPhone lineup. Our reporting is based solely on leaks and predictions from industry insiders with solid track records. That said, things are likely to develop quickly over the next few months, so we’ll be updating this story frequently.
iPhone 12 Design
According to tech analyst and leaker Jon Prosser, Apple will release four iPhone models this year, including a 5.4-inch iPhone 12, a 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Max, a 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Pro, and a 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max.
As you can see below, the 2020 iPhone lineup might do away with the curved design language that has come to define the series since 2017. Instead the new phones will sport a boxy design, with flat glass panels on the front. Regular iPhone 12 models are said to have an aluminum frame, while the Pro models will sport stainless steel.
A post shared by Filip Koroy (@everythingapplepro) on The SIM slot is reportedly moving to the left side of the phone, while a proprietary connector may make its home on the right; while there are few details about the connector’s purpose, we believe it could be for Apple’slong-awaited AR headsetthat will likely precede its AR glasses by a year. Antenna lines might also be slightly larger to accommodate custom 5G antennas. Finally, the power button will reportedly move a little lower down on the right side of the phone if images from the Japanese tech siteMacotakaraare to be believed.
In addition to these changes, there are two notable omissions. Multiple sources report the iPhone 12 will continue to use a Lightning port for charging and data transfer. Apple analyst Ming Chi Kuo also says this will be the first year Apple will not include a pair of EarPods in the box-instead the company will launch an AirPods promotion to coincide with the release of the new phones.
A post shared by Filip Koroy (@everythingapplepro) on All of the upcoming iPhone 12 models will have a smaller front-facing camera notch, as you can see below. Apple reportedly tweaked its TrueDepth camera and other sensors partly to improve screen-to-body ratio.
Korean tech site The Elec reports the iPhone 12 and 12 Max will feature OLED displays constructed by LG. These will reportedly be traditional OLED panels with a separate touch film. Additionally, the less expensive duo will feature dual 12MP camera stacks with larger sensors for improved photos.
The iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max will reportedly include premium Y-OCTA OLED display panels from Samsung. These panels are more durable, since the touch layer is actually built into the screen. Both sets of phones are said to support the 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate currently available on the iPad Pro.
The Pro models are also reported to feature a triple-lens camera stack. While all of the camera sensors are said to be larger this year, MacRumors reports the wide-angle lens will support sensor-shift image stabilization. This technology uses the iPhone’s accelerometer along with electrical actuators to prevent the effect of quick movements causing a deviation between what you see in the viewfinder and what the camera captures.
9 to 5 Mac reports that code in a beta version of iOS 14 confirms LiDAR will appear on the Pro models. LiDAR uses pulsed lasers to detect the distance from the phone to a specific object; it will likely be used to help image quality, more accurately detect distances, and improve AR apps and features.
iPhone 12 Hardware
Digitimes (via The Chinese Commercial Times) says that Apple tapped TSMC to create its A14 SoC for the upcoming iPhone 12 lineup. The A14 processor will reportedly be the first to use a 5nm process. While some manufacturers are using 7nm process chipsets in their flagships, Apple’s plan to shrink its SoC even further could translate into a significant performance boost and greater energy efficiency. If the A14 chipset does indeed use a 5nm process, it may offer performance that rivals even high-end desktop computers.
Jon Prosser shared hardware details about the upcoming iPhone lineup in a YouTube video. He claims the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro will ship with 4GB of RAM with 128GB and 256GB storage configurations, while the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max will sport 6GB of storage with 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB storage variants.
iPhone 12 5G Connectivity
While all of the upcoming iPhone 12 variants will reportedly support 5G connectivity, details are still scarce. There are, however, a few different scenarios we can expect based on global 5G build-outs and other factors.
We believe Apple will reserve dual-band 5G for its Pro lineup and will include sub-6GHz coverage for its less expensive phones. In this scenario, it’s also possible it may follow the lead of other manufacturers and create a dual-band version of the non-Plus iPhone 12 models for Verizon.
There’s also the possibility Apple will launch regional variants of its entire Phone 12 lineup. The US is one of a handful of countries prioritizing mmWave 5G, while most of the world is initially focused on sub-6GHz 5G, with mmWave coverage to follow in the coming years.
When Is the iPhone 12 Coming Out?
Apple typically announces its latest iPhones in September and releases them a week or so after the launch event. This year, things might be different.
Multiple sources claim Apple will release at least some of its upcoming iPhone 12 models later than normal this year. Even before the global coronavirus pandemic swept the globe, analysts at Susquehanna predicted the iPhone 12 release would be delayed by months due to Apple’s decision to manufacture its own 5G antennas.
Since then, The Wall Street Journal as well as analysts at JPMorgan and Bank of America, have predicted a one- to two-month delay in the release of the iPhone 12 due to supply chain issues associated with the coronavirus pandemic.
In February, Apple CEO Tim Cook released a public statement noting that the coronavirus pandemic has “temporarily constrained” iPhone supply and that facilities in China were “ramping up more slowly than we anticipated.”
According to Apple Insider, Jon Prosser and Ming Chi Quo have suggested Apple will delay the iPhone event until October.
Ultimately, we’ll just have to wait and see. But make sure to check back soon, as we’ll be updating this story as we learn new information.
Google's Android 11 Beta Is Now Live: Here's What's New
Google says it designed Android 11 around three key themes: People, controls, and privacy. If you own a Pixel 2, 3, 3a, or 4 device, you can enroll to download the OS today.
After postponing Android 11’s beta release twice, Google released the software today so developers can begin tinkering with it.
The release was supposed to occur on June 3 during a live-streamed launch event, but Google decided to postpone the proceedings, citing the George Floyd protests. Now the company has opted to cancel the original event entirely.
“Instead, we are releasing the Android 11 Beta today in a much different form, via short-form videos and web pages that you can consume at your own pace when the time is right for you,” the company wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.
Those with a Google Pixel 2, 3, 3a, or 4 phone can enroll to download the beta release. The company’s dedicated website for Android 11 also features detailed talks about the software and the new features.
People, Controls and Privacy
Google says it designed Android 11 around three key themes: People, controls and privacy. The people theme focuses on reimagining the way the OS can prioritize your friends and family on the interface. Google decided to do this by creating “conversation notifications,” which will have their own dedicated section on the notification bar.
(Credit: Google)
“To make communication easier and simpler on your phone, Android 11 will move all of your conversations across multiple messaging apps to a dedicated space in the notification section,” Google wrote in a separate blog post. “This makes it easy to see, respond to and manage your conversations all in one place. You can mark a conversation as priority to give it preference so you never miss an important message.”
Another change is the introduction of “Bubbles,” a floating icon that’ll appear on your phone when a friend, associate, or family member texts you. To us, the feature looks a lot like Facebook Messenger, which can also display “chat heads” over the Android interface.
On the controls front, the company wants to make it easier to use an Android phone to remotely access all your connected devices. So Android 11 features a new “device controls” menu, which can be brought up by long-pressing your phone’s power button.
(Credit: Google)
“Adjusting the temperature, turning on the lights or unlocking the front door can now be done with a tap without opening multiple apps,” Google says. The menu will also give you quick access to any credit cards you saved over Google Pay or to your airline tickets.
(Credit: Google)
Google also wants to address how people are constantly switching where their phone’s audio content is played from, whether it be wireless earbuds, Bluetooth speakers, or a smart TV. Android 11 tries to make this easier by including a dedicated button on the music track that’ll let you toggle between the devices on which you’d like to play the audio.
On privacy, Android 11 expands the ways you can limit your data from being shared with third-party apps. You’ll now be able to select “one-time permission” for an app to access your phone’s microphone, camera, or location data. “The next time the app needs access to these sensors, it will have to ask you for permission again,” Google says. (Currently, in Android 10, you can limit the access to when the third-party app is active, or choose to shut down the access completely.)
(Credit: Google)
Android 11 also includes a privacy safeguard against apps you granted unnecessary permission to but rarely access. “If users haven’t used an app for an extended period of time, Android 11 will ‘auto-reset’ all of the runtime permissions associated with the app and notify the user,” Google wrote in today’s blog post. “The app can request the permissions again the next time the app is used.”
The company says it plans on making the Android 11 beta available to more devices in the coming weeks. Google expects the OS to move out of beta into a public release some time in the third quarter.
We've been testing mobile data speeds for 10 years now. This time around we drove 9,652.5 miles through 30 US cities to determine which wireless carrier is the fastest where you live. Our 2019 winner might surprise you.
All four major wireless carriers in the US are constantly flinging claims at you—they're the fastest, the largest, the friendliest, the best. So 10 years ago, we decided to put those claims to the test. Every year since then, with the carriers' cooperation, we strap phones into a set of cars and send them across the country with our staff members behind the wheels, scooping up data for several weeks to see who has the fastest and most reliable smartphone data network.
Verizon had a good run for the past five years with its nationwide LTE network, but AT&T has rocketed into the top spot this year. What the carrier calls 5G Evolution may not be 5G, but it's definitely a stride toward it. The big push to improve its 4G LTE network in preparation for 5G pays off big time for AT&T; it's America's fastest mobile network in 2019.
Our Fastest Mobile Networks tests are more comprehensive than you'll find in other publications, and more transparent than the consulting firms the carriers use for a lot of their ads. We're beholden to you, not to them. This year, we drove through 30 cities and 25 states, running 60,000 speed tests to determine the fastest mobile network nationwide. Using Samsung Galaxy S10 phones, we ran tests every two minutes and summarized the results across six different categories. You can see more about this in our Testing Methodology section.
2019 Results at a Glance
Our awards balance speed and reliability, and for 10 years, the winner has flipped between AT&T and Verizon. T-Mobile spent a few years getting really fast, but never quite matched up to Verizon on coverage and reliability.
Although it's always been strong in some parts of the country (mostly the Southeast), AT&T seems to have backed away from being a smartphone-focused carrier over the past few years. Its phone subscriptions have been flat or slightly declining since 2015, while its number of connected non-phone subscribers, with gadgets like smart cars, has skyrocketed, as you can see in the charts below from Statista.
But AT&T needs 5G, for a lot of reasons. And it turns out that a key step toward 5G requires improving your 4G network. AT&T's initial 5G network uses short-distance millimeter wave airwaves, so to prevent its 5G customers from feeling like they're falling off a cliff where there's no 5G service, it needed to turn up the quality of its 4G. And so it did.
AT&T has also secretly been helped by improvements in smartphone modems over the past two years. Wireless spectrum forms the lanes on which all smartphone traffic travels, and AT&T has more LTE spectrum than T-Mobile or Verizon, according to Fierce Wireless. But AT&T's spectrum is typically highly fragmented, coming in many small pieces rather than a few large chunks. New modems are better able to aggregate a lot of small channels into one fast connection, which is working to AT&T's advantage.
You can experience AT&T's best-in-class network through a few different companies, and our readers like some of them more than the mainline AT&T brand. Our Readers' Choice awards rate wireless carriers based on a survey of what readers think about factors including price, phone selection, and customer service. Consumer Cellular, which uses AT&T's network, ranked at the top this year, with spectacular ratings for low prices and customer service. Cricket, which is owned by AT&T and uses AT&T's network, also ranked higher than its parent company. You can explore what our readers think of their carriers here.
Where's the 5G?
We've been testing wireless networks for 10 years, and they keep getting better. AT&T's win doesn't mean that T-Mobile or Verizon have worse networks than last year—all four major networks improved on both speed and reliability. It's just that AT&T improved more than the others
This will be our last 4G-only test, since 5G isn't quite ready for testing (or for widespread usage) this year. Each of the four carriers has announced very limited coverage in a few cities. The 5G situation is changing fast, so we're tracking it monthly with our Race to 5G, and you can find out more in our story on the current state of 5G.
But the vast majority of people will be using 4G for several years to come. Only 14 million Americans will have 5G by the end of 2020—that's compared with 400 million wireless connections in the US in 2017. So although 5G gets a lot of buzz, and it's fun to talk about, 4G is how you're going to be getting your mobile internet for years to come.
Regional and National Winners
Nationwide Winner: AT&T
For the first time in five years, AT&T is the nation's fastest mobile network. AT&T won or tied in 15 of our 30 cities, along with winning or tying in every rural region. The carrier has always had great coverage, but its 5G Evolution upgrades this year helped it vault upward in terms of download speeds, breaking through most especially in the western US.
Verizon, the previous longtime winner, continued to be strong in the Northeast, winning or tying 12 cities or regions. T-Mobile took seven awards, and Sprint got one win and a tie. Sprint had the best download speeds in nine cities, though; it just kept getting dinged on the other parts of our scoring algorithm.
Northeast: AT&T
There's always a weird one like this. Verizon won or tied four of our six Northeast awards, AT&T won or tied two, and T-Mobile won one, but when we averaged all of the scores out, AT&T won. This is largely because when Verizon won, it did so by small amounts, but AT&T's win in Philadelphia was far more commanding than any of the other differences between scores. So the big win in Philly more than balanced out small losses elsewhere.
That said, as you can see, it's nearly a tie between AT&T and Verizon. Verizon won more cities by smaller amounts. Verizon did better in Connecticut and New Jersey; AT&T did better in Virginia.
Southeast: T-Mobile
This one divided pretty neatly geographically. Traveling through the Carolinas, AT&T owns the place, no question. But when we got to Florida, T-Mobile was better. In Georgia, well, Verizon won in Atlanta, and Sprint had the highest download speeds throughout the state. Averaging all of this out had our T-Mobile results come out slightly higher largely because of better upload speeds.
North Central: AT&T
AT&T won three cities in this region, T-Mobile won two, and Verizon won one, with AT&T coming out on top at the end. T-Mobile's win in Chicago largely came from the fact that we hit a T-Mobile LAA site, a high-speed urban technology designed to speed up connections in crowded downtowns, stadiums, and other similar areas. If we hadn't stumbled upon that, we probably would have seen a situation where AT&T was better in the southern part of this coverage area and Verizon better in the northern part.
South Central: Verizon
AT&T is based in Dallas, but Verizon takes this one (and took Dallas). Verizon won three cities in this region and AT&T won three, so Verizon got the region through having a somewhat larger margin in its wins. Texas is an absolute hotbed of 5G activity, with AT&T running 5G networks in four cities, Verizon and Sprint each in two, and T-Mobile in one. All of the carriers are frantically upgrading their networks.
This year, you may notice, we went to San Antonio instead of Austin. We alternate those two cities from time to time, but it definitely factored in that Austin has been dragging its feet on 5G; the city may lose its primacy as a tech hub if other nearby cities develop better networks.
Northwest: AT&
AT&T won or tied three of our awards here, Verizon won two, Sprint won or tied two, and T-Mobile tied one. In terms of tech hubs, AT&T had the best performance in Seattle, while Verizon took the award for the San Francisco Bay Area.
Verizon might have won overall except that we had a very tough time with it in Salt Lake City, where its network struggled on multiple devices. AT&T also had the best coverage in our rural drives, although we saw some stretches where no carrier worked at all; if you're going into the mountains, make sure to take a satellite locator.
Southwest: AT&T
AT&T swept this region of the country (Verizon tied in one city), which cemented its nationwide win.
Testing Methodology
For this year's Fastest Mobile Networks testing, we used custom field test software designed by Ookla, the creator of Speedtest.net. (Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company.) The software was loaded onto sets of four Samsung Galaxy S10 series phones, chosen because they can access the latest network upgrades on all the major wireless carriers. Three sets of phones were driven around the country in rental cars—one down the East Coast, one down the center of the country, and one down the West Coast.
The software runs tests every two minutes. We used Ookla's default server selection methodology, which finds the nearest, fastest server in the company's comprehensive network. Over the course of driving, we tested downloads from 459 different servers, executing about 60,000 test runs.
We stopped at between 12 and 20 locations, for at least 15 minutes each, in our 30 cities. We averaged the data in each location, then averaged the locations together for an overall city result. The aggregated data from traveling between the test locations counted into the overall averages as two more locations. As we are testing LTE networks, we did not average in speeds on non-LTE networks. If a phone dropped off an LTE network, it was treated as if the test failed.
(Credit: Google)
(Credit: Google)
(Credit: Google)
(Credit: Google)
