Earlier this week, it was that time of the year again. The infamous Apple “September Event”, this year deemed “By Innovation Only”, has now come and gone., and in its wake, we’re left with the announcement of the iPhone 11 series, as well as a new Apple Watch and iPad. But, the brand new iPhone 11 won’t have 5G, Why would Apple, one of the world’s leaders in smartphones leave such an emerging feature out of their latest iPhones when their competition, the likes of which say Samsung, have been offering 5G variants of their phones since March of 2019?
The answer, when examined through the lens of “the Apple experience” actually makes a lot of sense, and will seemingly justify Apple’s decision to leave an emerging tech out of their latest phones.
Next Gen Connectivity
5G is one of the big ticket items in terms of bringing smartphones into the their next generation. The new connectivity offers many pros, namely higher speed and lower latency, but also brings a list of cons as well. Most notable of which, being the high risk for signal disruption through objects, as well as a more limited range by comparison to the current 4G network placed in the majority of the US. Because of these limitations, 5G is going to require a lot more infrastructure in place than the current 4G network. Some of the more populous cities in the US, like Chicago, have had the phone carriers begin to place the start of this infrastructure, and as a result certain areas of Chicago have limited 5G coverage, for use by capable devices. For a more visual example of what I mean, check out MrMobile’s video about 5G in Chicago here.
Full Circle
So, how does this relate back to the iPhone 11 not having 5G? Well, the simple answer is that having 5G connectivity in the iPhone 11 isn’t worth the cost of the additional hardware, that will sit being useless for, quite frankly, virtually all end users of the iPhone 11. Apple doesn’t like to implement features a majority of its users won’t benefit from, nor do they like to implement features that may contribute to a majority of users having a lesser experience with their products. It’s because of this philosophy, that Apple didn’t implement 5G into the iPhone 11, and I would go so far as to say, that Apple will comparatively be one of the last to market when it comes to implementing 5G connectivity in their iPhones.
Thank you for reading. If you’d like to read my criticisms of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10, check out my article here.
