Apple Event: Everything About the New iPhone 12 and the HomePod Mini

Apple presented iPhone 12 lineup and an interesting smart speaker on Tuesday. These new iPhones may remind you of the Apple iPhone 4. Also, there is no charger or headphones in the box with the iPhones. You can read all the technical details, prices, and sales dates for the new devices here.

Apple has now shown its new iPhones and For the first time, there are four different versions of the iPhone 12. All of them support fast 5G data transmission. Also new is the smart HomePod mini speaker which, with its aggressively low price, should certainly cause concern for the competition. Let’s find more.

The New iPhones – Design and Display

As in the past two years, Apple’s premium version of the iPhone is available in two sizes. The display of the iPhone 12 Pro measures 6.1 inches diagonally (11 Pro: 5.8 inches), that of the iPhone 12 Pro Max 6.7 inches (11 Pro Max: 6.5 inches). Overall, however, the devices have hardly got any bigger, as Apple has continued to shrink the display frame. In addition, the standard iPhone is now also available in two sizes. The iPhone 12 has a 6.1-inch display, the iPhone 12 mini one with a 5.4-inch diagonal. Incidentally, this year all devices have screens with OLED technology, not only those of the Pro series, which means a significant improvement for the cheaper iPhones compared to last year.

What is new for all devices is that the display is protected by a glass that Apple calls ‘Ceramic Shield’. With the help of nano-ceramic crystals in the glass, it should be significantly harder and offer four times better resistance to falling. The phones are also somewhat better protected against the ingress of water as instead of four, they can now dive six meters deep – and that for 30 minutes.

The design is reminiscent of the iPhone 4. Instead of the rounded sides of the past few years, Apple is now displaying the edge again by enclosing the new smartphones with a flat metal band. The frame of the Pro models is made of stainless steel, the other iPhones use aluminum. In addition to black and silver, there is a slightly lighter gold tone and the new color Pacific blue for the Pro devices. The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini are available in blue, green, red, silver, and dark gray.

5G and a Powerful Processor – Apple iPhone 12

The iPhone 12 is the first Apple smartphone that supports fast 5G data transmission. Smart software ensures that the energy requirement does not become too high for example by switching back to LTE when 5G is not necessary for the application. In addition, broad coverage of frequency bands should ensure that the devices work in all 5G networks.

Apple’s processors are always very fast, even compared to the competition. The new processor is manufactured with tiny 5 nm structures, which should make it very efficient. Apple also claims that the new A14 Bionic delivers 50% more processing speed and graphics performance than the fastest processor in the Android competition. It sounds impressive, but independent tests will have to prove it. The integrated neural core, the part of the processor that is responsible for machine learning calculations, is said to have increased by 80% compared to the A13. 

Also Read: Apple Partners And Samsung The Leading Names In Mega $143 Billion Smartphone Manufacturing Plan In India

Improved Camera for Photos and Videos, LiDAR in the Pro – Apple iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max

A new image signal processor (ISP) is supposed to process the images even better and smarter, without the user having to do anything. The function is now called Smart HDR 3. The camera sensor of the main camera is 47% larger, the aperture with f / 1.6 also a little wider, which should lead to 87% more light output. For the first time, optical image stabilization on the iPhone 12 Pro Max does not work via a movable lens, but rather via ‘sensor-shift’ with the help of a movable sensor. Since this is lighter, it can even better compensate for camera shake like up to 5000 times a second. That is five times better than the previous year’s device. This should enable you to take sharp photos with an exposure time of up to two seconds even in poor light and without a tripod.

The iPhone 12 Pro again has three lenses: an ultra-wide-angle, a wide-angle, and a telephoto lens. With 5x optical zoom, the iPhone 12 Pro Max offers a slightly higher magnification than the iPhone 12 Pro (4x zoom). The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini do not have a zoom lens.

By the way, the iPhone Pro 12 also has a new image format called Apple Pro Raw. A raw format that is also supposed to incorporate the improvements made in Smart HDR 3.

The video performance is also impressive as the cameras are the first in smartphones to record videos according to Dolby Vision specifications with 10-bit color depth. The Pro devices with up to 60 frames per second in 4K resolution, the others with 30 frames per second in 4K. The ISP is supposed to analyze and improve every single image, especially in poor light, the quality of the videos has improved significantly.

The LiDAR laser scanner is only located in the Pro devices. For example, it allows portraits with a blurring effect in night mode or significantly faster autofocus in low light. The technology is also suitable for measuring rooms or for placing virtual objects in the room.

More Sustainability in Production

As in previous years, Apple also takes sustainability into account when presenting its devices. The company wants to be completely climate-neutral in production by 2030. The materials are increasingly obtained from recycling. A step that is certainly not entirely undisputed is that Apple is also removing all headphones and chargers from the packaging for this reason. This saves electronic waste and also makes the packs smaller and more efficient during transport. Overall, Apple saves the emissions of 450,000 cars a year, according to the company. According to some people who hate this move by Apple, it might just be another step to charge the customers extra for the charger.

HomePod Mini is Amazingly Affordable

With the HomePod mini, Apple has presented a cheaper version of its HomePod smart speaker. The round speaker is available in black and white and costs 99 dollars in the US and Rs.9900 in India which is an astonishingly low price for Apple. The device is much smaller and simpler than the large and much more expensive HomePod and otherwise offers the same functionality as the smart speakers of the competition.

Here, the sound will determine how cheap the price actually is compared to the products from Amazon and Google. What is new and special, however, is that the HomePod mini contains the ultra-broadband radio chip U1, so that the device can, very precisely recognize when an iPhone is nearby and pointed at the loudspeaker. Corresponding functions are to be delivered in the course of the year.

Also Read: Apple to Replace Intel Chips on Macs With Its Inhouse Processors

Also new are the Ambient Sound functions, which play sounds such as rain, open fire or a stream to relax, or Intercom: This allows voice messages to be sent to other HomePods, iPhones or Apple Watches, for example, to call the family for dinner without going through having to shout individually in the house.