iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max pre order.

[TheForce]

I am hoping next year Apple comes out with the 120hz screen monitor.

Same here. Let us know what you think of 5G, both speed and reliability, vs battery life compared to LTE.

What service are you on?


I had more problems with my Verizon account Saturday morning. My wife went to use the phone and it failed. This was really strange as I had everything working Friday evening and Saturday AM the phone was no longer activated. Even my account web page indicated the active iphone was her old SE. Yet, we tried to use that and it failed as well. Tried to do the activation online and it kept telling me my new 12 Mini was locked, to call Verizon. That was a 30 minute wait. Finally I got Tech support Tier 1 and they couldn't figure it out after an hour of testing. I got bumped up to tier 2 and she repeated all the same tests and she couldn't figure it out. Bump to Tech support Tier Level 3. This one had me power cycle both the old and new iphones 3 times, then after entering all the different lengthy numbers into her support page, reading them off the iphone box, plus all the numbers on the old SE. Two more power cycles on both phones. I got to a screen on the 12 Mini that advised my SIM card was locked and needed a secret code that Tech support didn't know what to do. She had to check with a supervisor, so I wait. I'm now into this for 3+ hours. Need to plug in my 11 Pro Max to prevent the battery from dying.
Finally I hear the supervisor in the background say tell him to try 1111 to unlock the SIM. I entered that and now I get a little time wheel that lasted for a minute and then a message that popped up saying your phone is activated and ready to use.

Not done yet- we test making and receiving phone calls and it works. Then I check my wife's Apple watch and now that doesn't work. So for the next 30 minutes we go through the pairing and testing the watch as well. Had to start all over with the watch.

Conclusion from the tech as to why this trouble-- Her guess is the Apple migration process didn't properly activate the iphone 12 mini, leaving remnants of the SE active on my account. There was an old (SE) ICCID# in my account with the new MEID#.

 

[IcEWoLF]

Don, 5G in my area is barely any improvement over 4G LTE when it comes down to speeds, however I noticed the latencies being lower on 5G, so when I browsed videos on YouTube the videos were loading much quickly on 5G. The 5G coverage is spotty in my area, so it drops from 5G to 4G(LTE) often.

Most non tech savvy people complain that 5G is not that quick, but IMO the 5G project is about reducing the latency, so you can browse videos and load them much quicker when you are on the go. The improved speed is definitely an added bonus but it’s all about the performance.

Lastly, Verizon and all the other carriers in the US have lots of work to do to make 5G comparable to some of the Asian countries like South Korea & Taiwan and of course Japan. I’m hoping to see a huge leap by the end of next year with 5G.

 

[Foxbat]

I wonder if the 5G speed issues are like having Wi-Fi at home capable of multi-hundred Megabit speeds, but your home still has 3 Mbps DSL. Until the towers beef up their backhauls, connecting a bunch of Gigabit 5G phones won’t all see Gigabit speeds.

 

[TheForce]

Don, 5G in my area is barely any improvement over 4G LTE when it comes down to speeds, however I noticed the latencies being lower on 5G, so when I browsed videos on YouTube the videos were loading much quickly on 5G. The 5G coverage is spotty in my area, so it drops from 5G to 4G(LTE) often.

Most non tech savvy people complain that 5G is not that quick, but IMO the 5G project is about reducing the latency, so you can browse videos and load them much quicker when you are on the go. The improved speed is definitely an added bonus but it’s all about the performance.

Lastly, Verizon and all the other carriers in the US have lots of work to do to make 5G comparable to some of the Asian countries like South Korea & Taiwan and of course Japan. I’m hoping to see a huge leap by the end of next year with 5G.

Which carrier?

On my 11 Pro Max YT videos load instantly when Verizon has good signal. No detectable delay. The two applications that are said to benefit with low latency are high frequency stock trading where several stock trades are executed per second, and gamers who compete with each other on line and both are using low latency 5G. I know of no one who would run high frequency stock trading from an iphone. Most are using high end computer systems on OC50 lines near the trading floor.

The only benefit I am seeing personally from 5G is that a year ago I invested in several chip stocks that will benefit from 5G such as Qualcomm and Inseego. These have done well and I expect they will continue to grow as more people fall for the 5G me too crowd. I plan to sell as the growth curve flattens out taking my profits and looking for the next big thing.

I think 5G may be good for home and for businesses where speed / bandwidth is more useful. Some are speculating that Tesla will develop it's low latency Starling network with an antenna built into the roof to enable Level 5 Autonomy Self drive. Currently their FSD is being developed for only Level 4 that requires a driver. 5G Level 5 with low latency will be necessary to handle Vehicle to Vehicle V2V communications. No more guessing what the other driver is going to do.

Let us know what you think of Battery life with the 5G radio turned on. Several YT'ers have stated they switched it off because of battery life since 5G switchers so much to LTE anyway.

 

[IcEWoLF]

I have Verizon. Indoors with Verizon in my area is pretty weak. But since I work from home and I have Spectrum with 940gb speed I have no complaints, it’s just when I go inside buildings the service starts becoming meh. I feel that in my area AT&T has the best overall performance, their coverage can be spotty in some parts of the city but generally when the service is on they are very solid
I had AT&T since 2007 until I dropped them last year for Verizon. I did give T-Mobile a shot but their service in my area last year was absolute garbage. Maybe things have changed now that the T-Mobile acquisition of Sprint is complete.

The only reason I am sticking with Verizon is the overall service, not the fastest in my area but the most reliable and pretty much coverage all over town with no dead spots.

I think companies like Tesla will definitely benefit from the 5G coverage with their FSD. Many people think 5G speeds are not that great, but latency is key, I see 5G latencies constantly lower than 4G. This means a quicker response when getting data.

Lastly Don, I don’t see any improvement in battery life on 5G. I think battery life is pretty much the same as my iPhone 11 Pro Max from last year. I think Apple is saving up for next year to improve battery life and the screen refresh rate. I still have my Apple Watch SS 4 and it has been running fine, I don’t see a huge improvement from it with the 5 or 6 other than some minor upgrades, the 5 introducing the always on display and the 6 introducing a way to see your blood oxygen. I just don’t think it’s enough for me to upgrade. If I do end up upgrading I will end up giving my old watch to my old man.

 

[TheForce]

Thanks for the performance report. I'm glad I didn't spend for the iphone 12 Pro Max with 256. My 11 pro max 512 is doing fine. I just saw a nice A/B on the camera and for general photography there was no difference. I can do without the LIDAR. When I get serious with photography, I plan for the shoot with my DSLR and long ZOOM lens.

My wife is using my old AW4 which is cellular and SS. She likes it fine. I have been using the AW6 and know the advantages.
The AW4 introduced the EKG function and it was never reliable for me. I had to run it a half dozen times. The AW6 is good reading everytime.
The O2 is great and it runs periodically in the background. Exercise ring is still inaccurate as it has been for all AW history. I can exercise for an hour and it doesn't register even when working up a sweat. Then earlier this week I took a walk for an hour and the ring spun around 1.5 times. My heart rate was not more than 10 BPM above normal during that walk. I just don't understand that ring.
I don't like the always on display feature. It does use more battery power.
Ever since AW3 my AW gets only 2 days battery. The AW3 and before got 3 days between charging.

We're still resolving issues with the 12 mini getting it to function without errors. She continues to get "Locked SIM" and has to enter 1111 to send text messages but only to one of her relatives. The rest it works fine with no SIM error. Strange! I finally got Find my iphone app to work again. It was really screwed up which might just be an iOS 14 bug. It's working now. However her Nissan Leaf AP still doesn't work now on her Apple Watch. I think Nissan may need an update for iOS 14 as mine stopped working too. Tesla app did issue an update and works fine.

 

[IcEWoLF]

Apple released the 14.2.1 release two days ago I believe which should have addressed the issues with the iPhone 12 pro minis.

 

[TheForce]

Apple released the 14.2.1 release two days ago I believe which should have addressed the issues with the iPhone 12 pro minis.

Wife hasn't complained in 3 days now about her 12 mini so I think I got all the issues fixed. fingers crossed.

 

[IcEWoLF]

Wife hasn't complained in 3 days now about her 12 mini so I think I got all the issues fixed. fingers crossed.

Nice! You can now finally sleep inside of your own home now

 

[IcEWoLF]

So I had to go to the apple store today to exchange my phone because there was a line in my pictures and it was due to a thin lint. They offered me to do the apple care replacement but since I was within 14 days I told them I did not have to use any of my incidents and since this was a faulty defect since it was inside the camera I demanded a replacement, they spoke to the manager and they complied as they should.

The replacement phone while inspecting at the apple store had a scuff already, so they had to bring out a second phone out...we made sure the 2nd phone was free of defects such as lint inside the camera and any scuffs.
Spent 2 hours at the store because the new guy wasn’t sure how to do a replacement.

I think apple screwed up this year with the iPhone 12 edges because according to many users the edges scuff way more easily. So a round cornered edge would be a better option fighting against scuffs. I feel like the Quality Control this year for apple took a big hit.
Also I had to exchange my leather case because the edge kept popping out...the verdict still out and hopefully the new one doesn’t start popping out.

I do like the feel of the new apple leather case, it’s light and very grippy.
I went with the California Poppy leather case, it’s a nice contrast with the pacific blue iPhone.

 

[TheForce]

Sorry to learn of your troubles. Both of us here use a clear bumper on the iphones because they slide around so easily. I actually ordered her bumper case and received it before the phone arrived.
She already dropped her phone on a tile floor and no damage. The only problem I have is the Tesla wireless charger has a grip and with the bumper case it won't fit. Many are complaining about that but newer Model 3 and Y now got rid of that grip.

I really don't like Apple accessories, over priced and under performance.

Been using these for several iphone versions:
Amazon product ASIN B08H5WLXX8

 

[IcEWoLF]

I usually skip apple cases but this year I really wanted to try the leather case because the prior years the bottom of the phone use to be exposed, this year they covered it out nicely.

But yeah apple quality for accessories has been lacking. There are thousand of complaints about the leather case edge popping out, for $60 I’d expect good quality control. Also the MagSafe technology sucks. The magnets are kind of weak.
I would never buy an apple cable for charging, usually there are many on Amazon that are fantastic and 1/5th of the cost. I usually go for the longer cables because 3ft cables just suck.

 

[TheForce]

Strange problem with my wife's iphone 12 Mini. It was ordered from Apple direct with a Verizon SIMM card.

Every time she reboots the phone and turns it back on she gets a message that the SIMM card is locked. In order to unlock it she enters 1111 and then it is good until the next reboot.

We called Verizon and they were no help claiming it was the phone, call Apple. Apple tech support claims it's a Verizon Simm card call Verizon.

Is there a way to permanently unlock the simm card so we don't need to enter that 1111 code each time? Thought I would ask here first before trying the Apple support forums.

 

[Foxbat]

I thought that ordering an iPhone 12 through Apple with a carrier’s SIM “locks” that iPhone to the carrier (and saves you $30 over the unlocked iPhone price). But I just looked at Apple’s site and it’s only AT&T that locks your phone to AT&T. The only requirement is you need to activate your Verizon iPhone 12 mini on Verizon.

 

[TheForce]

Yes I did that and it took Verizon several hours and three techs to figure it out. But they never could figure out how to keep the simm unlocked. One supervisor I heard in the background yell out- "Tell him to try 1111." When I tried it that worked, but everytime I reboot I have to re-enter that number. The 12 also allows two carrier's to be active one at a time. One esimm and the second the little card. If I wanted to I could open an account with T-Moble and then switch the phone as needed. ButI don't need two carrier's. What Apple says is you have your main carrier on the eSimm and temporary ones on the card. Enables buying one of those temp numbers for traveling where you don't have Verizon service.

I wonder if I have to switch that generic access code 1111, to my own to make it permanent. ??? I'm afraid to play around with it now as it might screw things up. Right now it's just an annoyance.

 

[Foxbat]

TheForce, have you tried the instructions here?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201529

Turn your SIM PIN on or off​

1. If you have an iPhone, go to Settings > Cellular > SIM PIN. If you have an iPad, go to Settings > Mobile Data > SIM PIN.
2. Turn on your SIM PIN or turn it off.
3. If asked, enter your SIM PIN. If you've never used one, enter the default SIM PIN from your carrier. If you don’t know the default SIM PIN, don't try to guess it. Check your carrier's customer service page or the documents that came with your wireless plan. Or you can contact your carrier.
4. Tap Done.

 

[TheForce]

Thanks. Next time I get my hands on her 12 mini, I will see if that works. Hope it doesn't brick the phone. Already spent a half day on the phone with tech support on this annoyance.

 

[TheForce]

Latest software update seems to have a bug she discovered on her mini 12. A couple times now the touch screen becomes unresponsive. Using the reset two buttons still brings up a slider. I finally was able to reset it by bringing up the reset unresponsive slider and then holding the right button down for 10 seconds and it reset to the apple logo. When it came back up, pretty fast, the screen worked again.

When she resets the iphone mini 12 the sim pin code continues to popup after reset. Enter it once and it's good until the next time she resets. The default is well known as 1111.

I haven't gotten around to trying the sim pin turn off and half afraid to do that for fear of screwing up something that can't be fixed.