iPhone 12 Launch: Apple Introduces 5G Phones – Live Updates | Technology

A new feature coming to iPhone 12: “Smart Data Mode,” which allows the phone to automatically downgrade to 4G if you don’t need the speeds to save battery life. It’s a side recognition that this will be a bumpy transition.

The phone also features a new screen technology: “ceramic shield”, a new type of screen that is “stronger than any smartphone glass”. It has a four times better drop performance, apparently “the biggest jump in reliability we’ve ever had on an iPhone.”

The new iPhone 12 has picked up the OLED display of the iPhones 11 Pro, giving it a sharper, brighter and more colorful display, according to Kaiann Drance, the company’s director of iPhone marketing.

That also makes it smaller than the iPhone 11, with an industrial design that resembles a cross between the iPad Pro and the iPhone 11 Pro.

And so on the iPhone 12:

Cook brings out Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg to talk a little more about 5G. British readers may ignore most of this for a number of reasons: on the one hand, Verizon is a US-only carrier but on the other hand, the specific technology that Vestberg is talking about is mmWave 5G, which is not widely used outside the U.S.

Vestberg discusses the benefits of the technology, which Verizon has called UltraWideband 5G: It is extremely fast. It doesn’t mention the downsides – it is blocked by trees and glass panes, which means coverage is limited to very dense urban areas.

Vestberg concludes: “5G just got real,” before handing it back to Cook.

Back to Tim, and the main event: the iPhone.

“The next generation is here,” says Cook: “Today, we bring 5G to the iPhone.” It will deliver more responsive games, real-time interactivity and faster uploads and downloads, he says, and you can get faster speeds even in densely connected areas.

“Every generation of cellular network technology on the iPhone has enabled groundbreaking innovations … and 5G is the most exciting step yet,” he adds.

Listening to it, you’d think Apple invented 5G, rather than being almost a year late for the technology.

Truly impressive prices: The HomePod Mini, in black or white, will cost just $ 99, and pre-orders will open on November 6 and ship ten days later.

Apple goes on to a brief overview of all the things Siri can do on the HomePod Mini. Its below-average smart assistant has always been the HomePod line’s weakness, particularly now that the company is gradually enabling audio from services other than Apple Music, but Apple insists today that Siri is smart enough to “help you. make things home. “

An attractive new feature, Intercom, allows users to send a message to their family through a network of linked HomePods, as well as their watches, iPhones, and other Apple devices.

It’s … a mini HomePod!

The company says, unsurprisingly, that it comes with a “compact design” that still has “really great sound.” The S5 chip inside the smart speaker, the same one that was inside last year’s Apple Watch, enables “computational audio,” the company says.

When you put two in the same room, they cleverly become a stereo pair, and if they’re in the rest of the house, you can have multi-room audio. If you have a newer iPhone, you can “feel like your devices are physically linked” thanks to the UWB chip in new phones.

What’s still unclear is what the tradeoffs are versus the HomePod (Maxi?). The smaller speaker presumably has a few, but we’re obviously not going to hear about them today.

Tim Cook is launching straight into an “exciting new home product.”

“We focus on three key attributes: first, they must be easy to use; we design our products to work well together; and we design them to protect your privacy.

“We applied these principles when we created the HomePod. And now, we want to bring this experience to more people ”.

It’s the HomePod Mini, folks.

And we go. Some soft electronic music and muted colors fade into the orange and black of the company’s event invitation, which bore the slogan “Hi, speed,” before moving on to a pretty Apple Park on-and-off montage. It’s like Koyaanisqatsi, if that movie had the choppy pop soundtrack instead of Philip Glass, and if it was about how pretty Apple headquarters is.

This is the third event Apple has held since the lockdown forced the company to abandon its regular business in its Steve Jobs Theater, and it will be interesting to see if they continue to evolve their presentation.

WWDC, in the summer, was featured largely like the keynotes of previous years, albeit with more prerecorded cuts – it even opened with Tim Cook on stage, albeit with the camera facing the empty auditorium.

But by the iPad launch last month, the show had gotten freer: Cook walking down a hallway at Apple’s office cut a segment presented from a gym, and then a moody blue and black shot inside the “secret labs.” research “company.

One trend that is likely to continue is the fast pace of the whole thing. With no pauses for Apple employees to yell with enthusiasm, or the need to grapple with guests getting on and off stage, events have been much faster and more information-dense than in previous years. This time, I would be surprised if we made it through 90 minutes. Good news for everyone except us live bloggers, who now have to write twice as fast as normal to keep up.

Hello and welcome to The Guardian Live Blog on Apple’s latest press event. We will start at 10 a.m. M., Pacific Time, which is 6 p.m. M., UK time, and 4 a.m. M. In NSW for the latest news.

We expect to see no fewer than four new iPhones today, as well as a goodie bag of other products, including, potentially, the launch of Apple’s first private label on-ear headphones.

If you’d like to watch it live, Apple is streaming the event on YouTube, which I’ve also incorporated above. Otherwise, stay here and we’ll keep you up to date with the big news, translate the tech talk, and just ignore most of the hype for the next several hours.