Apple iPhone 12: Don't get tricked by the 5G gimmick

Would you ever buy a Ferrari, if you lived in a place that didn't have good roads? The answer, I think, would be a resounding no, because you won't be able to drive it and experience the thrill of high speed. Simply because, the roads cannot handle those speeds. So, what’s the whole point of getting one, right?

The 5G-powered iPhone 12 is a bit like that Ferrari. It comes with the power of 5G, a technology that theoretically offers speeds 10 to 20 times faster than the current 4G wireless networks. But can you actually experience these blazing speeds on the new iPhone? No, you can’t. Because we don’t have the infrastructure that can facilitate these super-fast speeds.

This may sound harsh, but in India, buying a 5G phone is a waste because we don’t have 5G networks yet. And I don’t expect them to be in place before the mid of 2021.

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If you talk about the US, several telecom operators have deployed 5G networks on lower spectrum bands, which offer slightly higher speeds than 4G. In fact, a noticeably faster variant of "mid-band" 5G is also being rolled out in America, but it will take around 5 years to reach 75 percent of the country's population. The fact is that, currently, 5G phones in the United States are seeing only a small bump up from 4G speeds. So, there's going to be relatively very little you can do on a 5G iPhone that you can't with a 4G iPhone.

In South Korea, 5G networks are better and faster, but local players such as Samsung are in a stronger position to woo users. Apple is likely to struggle there with its 5G proposition.

Another important thing to note is that we don’t even have many apps that can tap into the potential of 5G. Remember how the interest in 4G was fuelled by Facebook and YouTube mobile apps?

So, perhaps, we first need applications that can use higher speeds to deliver something new and kindle our interest in the next-gen mobile network.

The point I am trying to make here is that don’t buy the new iPhone just because it has 5G. Pick it only if you think it has everything else that you are looking for in your phone. The same holds true for 5G-enabled Android phones as well.

In short, 5G is still evolving. So, don’t fall for the 5G marketing gimmick that many phone makers are now banking on. It's simply a sales ploy.