Apple has always been a company which does things in a manner which attracts people to buy their products no matter the price. This is because they have created an ecosystem which “just works” as they say. As we already know, there was an Apple event scheduled for October 13 where the company announced its latest iPhone 12 series along with a separate product named the HomePod Mini. Also, Apple knows that the boring part of the entire launch event was the HomePod Mini so they launched it first and got it out of the way.
The HomePod Mini is a smaller version of the $199 HomePod and is powered by Siri and claims to produce great sounds to fill the entire room. The best part is that the HomePod Mini costs $99 and competes with the likes of Google Home and Echo speakers from Amazon. However, the limelight of the show which was the iPhone 12 series announcement followed.
And as expected, the iPhone 12 was announced with A14 Bionic chipset, 12MP+12MP camera setup at the back as well as a new design inspired by the iPhone 5 with flat sides. However, the biggest change with the iPhone 12 is that it comes with an OLED panel instead of an LCD panel from last year. The iPhone 12 also comes with a 6.1-inch display which is considered too big by many.
So to nullify that problem, Apple launched the iPhone 12 Mini in a spectacular fashion and it is even smaller than the iPhone SE 2 launched recently. The specs of the iPhone 12 Mini are the same as the iPhone 12 with just the battery being smaller due to the size. These phones have 5G support which Apple made a huge deal about in their event. The display on the iPhone 12 Mini is a 5.4-inch one and Apple has marketed it as a tiny phone but there was a time when this size was considered a “phablet”.
Also, Apple pulled off their environmental angle regarding the iPhones with removing their chargers as well as earpods from the box as well as reducing the size of iPhone boxes. However, the thing which is funny is that Apple introduced MagSafe on the back of all iPhones which are magnets that attach the magnetic wireless charger to the back for charging.
These MagSafe chargers are sold separately for $40 and you still have to carry them if you don’t have a regular charger from the previous iPhones or else buy a regular charging brick and cable from the Apple store.
You would think that removing charger and earpods from the box of the $699 and $799 iPhone 12 Mini and iPhone 12 respectively is somewhat understandable. Even though they are not budget phones, iPhone 12 Pro series is still premium so that should have them. But no, the entire iPhone 12 series lineup does not have chargers, charging brick or earpods inside the box.
Talking about the iPhone 12 Pro series, the iPhone 12 Pro and the iPhone 12 Pro Max comes with better cameras than the iPhone 12 series while the material is also better with stainless steel rather than aluminium sides. However, the iPhone 12 Pro Max has a better camera than the iPhone 12 Pro with a 2.5x telephoto lens compared to the 2x respectively.
The starting price of both the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max are same as last year with $999 and $1099 respectively but they now come with 5G support as well as some upgrades compared to last year. There was no mention of the ProMotion display on stage which is 120Hz refresh rate and reports suggest it has everything to do with battery consumption.
