How hard is this to understand? Why do people assess emerging tech by wrapping the limitations of the current paradigm around it? As the technology makes more bandwidth available, new high bandwidth use cases are created, and mass market users will want those new uses. Consumer service packages follow suit, tracking somewhere between charging what they can get away with for it and providing users with ever-increasing sizes for data packages.
It’s very easy to understand, but we’ve been through the rounds of the next big thing before. AI, VR, AR, IoT, heck, even 3D TV. There are a lot of big industry trends that come and then fizzle. The sturm and drang over VR and AR was pretty big when Google, Facebook, and MS came out with solutions for them, but not Apple to their doom about 3 to 4 years ago, and they have become sideshows or niches now.
We’ve asked what is the big feature of 5G, and basically every answer involves solutions not involving smartphones - the putative point of this thread with 5G on iPhones - or rather limited use cases, or the answer involves a “to be invented feature” that everyone will want, but we just don’t know now. If it is good, you should be able to outline a case or feature that is really desirable and can’t be done today. What will get people to upgrade? What is the feature selling it to consumers?
For the original iPhone, being able to browse the web was a huge desirable future. That was a huge blow away feature, and having fast Internet access was a big part of that. Nobody was confused about this and people paid the extra money for it. People got service plans at basically 2x the cost they were paying before at the time. That ride ended about 4 years ago maybe when LTE matured, devices got fast enough, displays got big enough. I haven’t desired faster bandwidth on my 6S Plus much at all. More data and better signal strength in more places? Most certainly. But 5G isn’t addressing that.
Siting old, failed technology (or, yet to mature technology) as an excuse is a very poor excuse. The same for "what we have today is good enough". Both are poor excuses for a major tech leader sitting on its butt and blocking technologic progress for no apparent reason.
I can’t think of a technology more expense and less useful, even in the long run, than 5G.
If implementation works out, 5G means much faster speeds, much lower latency, and the ability to connect vastly more devices. Downloading movies faster isn't really what 5G would be about. Once you're able to download a high-resolution movie faster than you can watch it, the extra speed doesn't really mean anything to you.
5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet. When iPhone 1 was introduced, it didn't even have GPS built in. Then they added it. Apple farmed out maps to Google at first, until they realized that Google was using location information to do more things than deliver a GPS map program. The whole abrupt Apple maps introduction/fiasco happened precisely because even Apple hadn't initially realized the full implications of putting an active GPS device in everyone's pocket. Then they realized this add-on tech was going to be a core function. Now a very few short years later, a selling point for iPhones is that Apple is more attentive about making sure you can prevent all the various sundry apps loaded on your device aren't using your location data without your knowledge or permission, because lots of people have thought of new and interesting ways to use location data that didn't even exist a few years ago.
So if 5G delivers huge bandwidth, extremely low latency, and the ability to simultaneously connect a huge number of devices, you suddenly have the ability to have lots of separate devices doing things in concert, in real time and orchestrated precisely. Thinking about those GPS maps, consider the following. Right now, if you're driving with a GPS app delivering your proposed route, you can get pretty good ETA info, and in cities that have it, you can get traffic information baked in. If a jam forms up ahead and it gets big and slow enough, your map program will offer an alternative route. Pretty cool, but it's still based on rudimentary data. There's a traffic jam on the route slowing traffic to below a certain speed range. At some threshold, the mapping app will generate an alternate route, based mostly on existing stock info on traffic lights, speed limits, etc. Also, everyone else will get the same info at the same time, causing lots of people to choose the same alternate route, creating a second traffic jam. Lather, rinse and repeat.
That scenario with 5G could be very different. The cars that get into the accident instantly relay that info outward. So do most of the cars that have to stop behind the accident. Alternate routes start popping up in real time. If multiple alternates are available, different cars will get different recommendations, creating optimal distributed routing around the accident, minimizing secondary traffic jams. Add an increasing percentage of self-driving cars that respond instantly to these changes, and traffic becomes a whole new experience. That's just an obvious use case. It's the stuff that few or no people have thought of yet that will be truly remarkable.
Of course, there will also be the unintended consequences along with the sociopathic implementations that we'll also have to deal with, but there you go.
Well said and true! Historically major advances in communications technology have changed computing in profound and unexpected ways. Those who judge it based on today's uses are left behind in the dust. As you mentioned: 5G is not about downloading movies faster - although that is typically how it is portrayed and compared in the media and by those with limited vision.
All of this may be true, but it completely ignores the fact that the vast majority applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point. It's interesting how the debate on this mirrors politics in the country right now - completely black and white with no room for grey. Everyone assumes that anyone who isn't 110% for 5G in every possible device as soon as humanly possible is automatically a total luddite (or an intellectual conservative) that is to myopic to see beyond dinnertime. Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks. If you look at the history of tech evolution, this is abundantly clear. The rollouts always take longer than promised, the capabilities are always less than promised, and the actual uses are never what people initially envision. Look at 4G/LTE - even now we have not fully realized the promises made a decade ago. Looking at that history, the pace of the rollout so far in 2019 and the average life of a smartphone, I have absolutely no concerns about any smartphone being 'left behind' by 5G.
Sure, but the utility for 5G on phones doesn't emerge until it's available on phones. That's exactly the case demonstrated by my earlier reference to iPhone adding GPS as a feature. That example also demonstrated a case where Apple waited longer than they should have to realize the importance of that technology. It's quite typical for them not to get too worked up about being first with a particular feature, preferring instead to 'get it right.' Nonetheless, with GPS, they had to ditch Google in a hurry, and introduce Apple maps before it was ready, just to catch up with a rapidly growing location-based marketplace. So with 5G, they don't need to be the first ones pushing out hardware, but they can't afford to just sit on it and wait a few years to see what people do with it.
So saying "the vast majority [of 5G utility] applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point" is very much an intellectually conservative stance to take on the subject. Your statement is only true so long as smartphones don't have 5G hardware. The 5G infrastructure is coming, and soon. I'm o.k that my current device doesn't have the feature, but I'd be concerned if Apple wasn't already loading it into the pipeline. GPS was added to iPhone in 2008, and Apple Maps pushed out both prematurely and way too late in 2012. The intervening four years saw the proliferation of the use of location data emerge in a decidedly non-Apple way. Apple booted google maps and rolled out Apple maps because they realized they were already way behind, and even though their own maps weren't ready, they couldn't make location services (and a privacy- and security-based implementation of it) a core part of iOS and still have Google right in the middle of it. 5G is going to be a big deal, and they can't afford to sit back for a few years to decide how they want to get into it.
P.S. Seriously. Smartphone tech that is already ubiquitous didn't exist thirteen years ago. Think about that. In 2007, Blackberry was the smartphone king, and served primarily a business niche market. The kids who had cellphones were texting each other using number keypads, and they were getting into trouble because their texting volume was blowing out their parents' phone plans, which had a monthly cap on the number of text messages. A kid born just before iPhones came out is just now old enough for her Bat Mitzvah. The timeline between "emerging technology" and being ubiquitous is very, very short.
I can’t think of a technology more expense and less useful, even in the long run, than 5G.
If implementation works out, 5G means much faster speeds, much lower latency, and the ability to connect vastly more devices. Downloading movies faster isn't really what 5G would be about. Once you're able to download a high-resolution movie faster than you can watch it, the extra speed doesn't really mean anything to you.
5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet. When iPhone 1 was introduced, it didn't even have GPS built in. Then they added it. Apple farmed out maps to Google at first, until they realized that Google was using location information to do more things than deliver a GPS map program. The whole abrupt Apple maps introduction/fiasco happened precisely because even Apple hadn't initially realized the full implications of putting an active GPS device in everyone's pocket. Then they realized this add-on tech was going to be a core function. Now a very few short years later, a selling point for iPhones is that Apple is more attentive about making sure you can prevent all the various sundry apps loaded on your device aren't using your location data without your knowledge or permission, because lots of people have thought of new and interesting ways to use location data that didn't even exist a few years ago.
So if 5G delivers huge bandwidth, extremely low latency, and the ability to simultaneously connect a huge number of devices, you suddenly have the ability to have lots of separate devices doing things in concert, in real time and orchestrated precisely. Thinking about those GPS maps, consider the following. Right now, if you're driving with a GPS app delivering your proposed route, you can get pretty good ETA info, and in cities that have it, you can get traffic information baked in. If a jam forms up ahead and it gets big and slow enough, your map program will offer an alternative route. Pretty cool, but it's still based on rudimentary data. There's a traffic jam on the route slowing traffic to below a certain speed range. At some threshold, the mapping app will generate an alternate route, based mostly on existing stock info on traffic lights, speed limits, etc. Also, everyone else will get the same info at the same time, causing lots of people to choose the same alternate route, creating a second traffic jam. Lather, rinse and repeat.
That scenario with 5G could be very different. The cars that get into the accident instantly relay that info outward. So do most of the cars that have to stop behind the accident. Alternate routes start popping up in real time. If multiple alternates are available, different cars will get different recommendations, creating optimal distributed routing around the accident, minimizing secondary traffic jams. Add an increasing percentage of self-driving cars that respond instantly to these changes, and traffic becomes a whole new experience. That's just an obvious use case. It's the stuff that few or no people have thought of yet that will be truly remarkable.
Of course, there will also be the unintended consequences along with the sociopathic implementations that we'll also have to deal with, but there you go.
Well said and true! Historically major advances in communications technology have changed computing in profound and unexpected ways. Those who judge it based on today's uses are left behind in the dust. As you mentioned: 5G is not about downloading movies faster - although that is typically how it is portrayed and compared in the media and by those with limited vision.
All of this may be true, but it completely ignores the fact that the vast majority applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point. It's interesting how the debate on this mirrors politics in the country right now - completely black and white with no room for grey. Everyone assumes that anyone who isn't 110% for 5G in every possible device as soon as humanly possible is automatically a total luddite (or an intellectual conservative) that is to myopic to see beyond dinnertime. Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks. If you look at the history of tech evolution, this is abundantly clear. The rollouts always take longer than promised, the capabilities are always less than promised, and the actual uses are never what people initially envision. Look at 4G/LTE - even now we have not fully realized the promises made a decade ago. Looking at that history, the pace of the rollout so far in 2019 and the average life of a smartphone, I have absolutely no concerns about any smartphone being 'left behind' by 5G.
Yes, you are correct when you say [if you live in the U.S.] "there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point." But then, in 2007 the iPhone didn't have much more capability than the typical flip phone "at that point". Again, you measure tomorrow's uses based on the assumption that they will not change from today's -- and ignore AppleZulu's comprehensive debunking of that theory.
I did nothing of the sort. Rather you are extrapolating my argument further than it was intended and creating straw man arguments. Again, in bold, just to help you read:
Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks.
To use your argument about the 2007 iPhone, whether the 2007 iPhone had 3G capability or not played no roll in the development and roll out of 3G tech. We are a bit in a catch22 with 5G - there is virtually no 5G availability in the US (availability in other countries is really of no consequence to me.) There are virtually no phones that use 5G and thus virtually no one to use it. Until it's even modestly available, the main demand will be from technophiles wanting the latest capabilities. Until there's a critical mass, there will be precious little new uses for it. After such uses arise, the time frame for important/critical new uses of the technology is likely 3-5 years beyond that. All that brings us back to my argument for today - unless you are an early adopter that has no problem paying $$$ for cutting edge technology that has very little practical use it makes no sense to buy a 5G phone right now. Save your money and wait a few years. The technology will mature and improve, prices will come down, availability will increase and you can actually decide if any of these fabulous new, undiscovered uses actually matter to you.
I'll also point out (again) that much of the 5G rollout involves improvements to the infrastructure backbone of the network and all users will benefit, whether they have 5G or not.
Still, your argument fails on two points: 1) To get that critical mass takes BOTH transmitters and receivers. There's no way it will get there if, as you advocate, the receiver end sits on its butt waiting for it to happen.
So yeh, by arguing that 5G should not be added to smartphones "today" you are arguing that it shouldn't roll out. The analogy is WiFi: it could not have happened without the availability of BOTH transmitters and receivers. 5G is the same.
2) Most iPhones purchased today will be running and operational 5 years from now. Despite your dire predictions, critical mass for much of the world will occur before that -- other countries and other vendors are charging ahead. So, who wants to buy a phone that will soon be obsolete -- and it's wrong for Apple to foist something like that onto their unsuspecting customers. It would be like buying a laptop without (at one point) an ethernet port or, later, without a WiFi receiver.
Apple caved in to Qualcomm for only one reason: To get a 5G modem. So, they got it -- along with the technology to make it work. It's time they got off their butts. They owe it to their customers and the world. By sitting on their butts waiting for it, as you advocate, to mature is holding back progress for the world and short changing the customers who are trusting them and buying their phones today.
Apple, had their excuse: Their preferred vendor had failed them. Now they are out of excuses and its time for them to get off their butts and give their customers and the world what it wants and needs.
There's no current evidence that the world needs it. I daresay a large proportion of the world doesn't really give a hoot, so it's a stretch to say it even wants it.
Futurism is all well and good, but castigating people for not getting behind vague notions of possible usefullness doesn't seem like the best way to advocate.
I can’t think of a technology more expense and less useful, even in the long run, than 5G.
If implementation works out, 5G means much faster speeds, much lower latency, and the ability to connect vastly more devices. Downloading movies faster isn't really what 5G would be about. Once you're able to download a high-resolution movie faster than you can watch it, the extra speed doesn't really mean anything to you.
5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet. When iPhone 1 was introduced, it didn't even have GPS built in. Then they added it. Apple farmed out maps to Google at first, until they realized that Google was using location information to do more things than deliver a GPS map program. The whole abrupt Apple maps introduction/fiasco happened precisely because even Apple hadn't initially realized the full implications of putting an active GPS device in everyone's pocket. Then they realized this add-on tech was going to be a core function. Now a very few short years later, a selling point for iPhones is that Apple is more attentive about making sure you can prevent all the various sundry apps loaded on your device aren't using your location data without your knowledge or permission, because lots of people have thought of new and interesting ways to use location data that didn't even exist a few years ago.
So if 5G delivers huge bandwidth, extremely low latency, and the ability to simultaneously connect a huge number of devices, you suddenly have the ability to have lots of separate devices doing things in concert, in real time and orchestrated precisely. Thinking about those GPS maps, consider the following. Right now, if you're driving with a GPS app delivering your proposed route, you can get pretty good ETA info, and in cities that have it, you can get traffic information baked in. If a jam forms up ahead and it gets big and slow enough, your map program will offer an alternative route. Pretty cool, but it's still based on rudimentary data. There's a traffic jam on the route slowing traffic to below a certain speed range. At some threshold, the mapping app will generate an alternate route, based mostly on existing stock info on traffic lights, speed limits, etc. Also, everyone else will get the same info at the same time, causing lots of people to choose the same alternate route, creating a second traffic jam. Lather, rinse and repeat.
That scenario with 5G could be very different. The cars that get into the accident instantly relay that info outward. So do most of the cars that have to stop behind the accident. Alternate routes start popping up in real time. If multiple alternates are available, different cars will get different recommendations, creating optimal distributed routing around the accident, minimizing secondary traffic jams. Add an increasing percentage of self-driving cars that respond instantly to these changes, and traffic becomes a whole new experience. That's just an obvious use case. It's the stuff that few or no people have thought of yet that will be truly remarkable.
Of course, there will also be the unintended consequences along with the sociopathic implementations that we'll also have to deal with, but there you go.
Well said and true! Historically major advances in communications technology have changed computing in profound and unexpected ways. Those who judge it based on today's uses are left behind in the dust. As you mentioned: 5G is not about downloading movies faster - although that is typically how it is portrayed and compared in the media and by those with limited vision.
All of this may be true, but it completely ignores the fact that the vast majority applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point. It's interesting how the debate on this mirrors politics in the country right now - completely black and white with no room for grey. Everyone assumes that anyone who isn't 110% for 5G in every possible device as soon as humanly possible is automatically a total luddite (or an intellectual conservative) that is to myopic to see beyond dinnertime. Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks. If you look at the history of tech evolution, this is abundantly clear. The rollouts always take longer than promised, the capabilities are always less than promised, and the actual uses are never what people initially envision. Look at 4G/LTE - even now we have not fully realized the promises made a decade ago. Looking at that history, the pace of the rollout so far in 2019 and the average life of a smartphone, I have absolutely no concerns about any smartphone being 'left behind' by 5G.
Sure, but the utility for 5G on phones doesn't emerge until it's available on phones. That's exactly the case demonstrated by my earlier reference to iPhone adding GPS as a feature. That example also demonstrated a case where Apple waited longer than they should have to realize the importance of that technology. It's quite typical for them not to get too worked up about being first with a particular feature, preferring instead to 'get it right.' Nonetheless, with GPS, they had to ditch Google in a hurry, and introduce Apple maps before it was ready, just to catch up with a rapidly growing location-based marketplace. So with 5G, they don't need to be the first ones pushing out hardware, but they can't afford to just sit on it and wait a few years to see what people do with it.
So saying "the vast majority [of 5G utility] applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point" is very much an intellectually conservative stance to take on the subject. Your statement is only true so long as smartphones don't have 5G hardware. The 5G infrastructure is coming, and soon. I'm o.k that my current device doesn't have the feature, but I'd be concerned if Apple wasn't already loading it into the pipeline. GPS was added to iPhone in 2008, and Apple Maps pushed out both prematurely and way too late in 2012. The intervening four years saw the proliferation of the use of location data emerge in a decidedly non-Apple way. Apple booted google maps and rolled out Apple maps because they realized they were already way behind, and even though their own maps weren't ready, they couldn't make location services (and a privacy- and security-based implementation of it) a core part of iOS and still have Google right in the middle of it. 5G is going to be a big deal, and they can't afford to sit back for a few years to decide how they want to get into it.
P.S. Seriously. Smartphone tech that is already ubiquitous didn't exist thirteen years ago. Think about that. In 2007, Blackberry was the smartphone king, and served primarily a business niche market. The kids who had cellphones were texting each other using number keypads, and they were getting into trouble because their texting volume was blowing out their parents' phone plans, which had a monthly cap on the number of text messages. A kid born just before iPhones came out is just now old enough for her Bat Mitzvah. The timeline between "emerging technology" and being ubiquitous is very, very short.
I can’t think of a technology more expense and less useful, even in the long run, than 5G.
If implementation works out, 5G means much faster speeds, much lower latency, and the ability to connect vastly more devices. Downloading movies faster isn't really what 5G would be about. Once you're able to download a high-resolution movie faster than you can watch it, the extra speed doesn't really mean anything to you.
5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet. When iPhone 1 was introduced, it didn't even have GPS built in. Then they added it. Apple farmed out maps to Google at first, until they realized that Google was using location information to do more things than deliver a GPS map program. The whole abrupt Apple maps introduction/fiasco happened precisely because even Apple hadn't initially realized the full implications of putting an active GPS device in everyone's pocket. Then they realized this add-on tech was going to be a core function. Now a very few short years later, a selling point for iPhones is that Apple is more attentive about making sure you can prevent all the various sundry apps loaded on your device aren't using your location data without your knowledge or permission, because lots of people have thought of new and interesting ways to use location data that didn't even exist a few years ago.
So if 5G delivers huge bandwidth, extremely low latency, and the ability to simultaneously connect a huge number of devices, you suddenly have the ability to have lots of separate devices doing things in concert, in real time and orchestrated precisely. Thinking about those GPS maps, consider the following. Right now, if you're driving with a GPS app delivering your proposed route, you can get pretty good ETA info, and in cities that have it, you can get traffic information baked in. If a jam forms up ahead and it gets big and slow enough, your map program will offer an alternative route. Pretty cool, but it's still based on rudimentary data. There's a traffic jam on the route slowing traffic to below a certain speed range. At some threshold, the mapping app will generate an alternate route, based mostly on existing stock info on traffic lights, speed limits, etc. Also, everyone else will get the same info at the same time, causing lots of people to choose the same alternate route, creating a second traffic jam. Lather, rinse and repeat.
That scenario with 5G could be very different. The cars that get into the accident instantly relay that info outward. So do most of the cars that have to stop behind the accident. Alternate routes start popping up in real time. If multiple alternates are available, different cars will get different recommendations, creating optimal distributed routing around the accident, minimizing secondary traffic jams. Add an increasing percentage of self-driving cars that respond instantly to these changes, and traffic becomes a whole new experience. That's just an obvious use case. It's the stuff that few or no people have thought of yet that will be truly remarkable.
Of course, there will also be the unintended consequences along with the sociopathic implementations that we'll also have to deal with, but there you go.
Well said and true! Historically major advances in communications technology have changed computing in profound and unexpected ways. Those who judge it based on today's uses are left behind in the dust. As you mentioned: 5G is not about downloading movies faster - although that is typically how it is portrayed and compared in the media and by those with limited vision.
All of this may be true, but it completely ignores the fact that the vast majority applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point. It's interesting how the debate on this mirrors politics in the country right now - completely black and white with no room for grey. Everyone assumes that anyone who isn't 110% for 5G in every possible device as soon as humanly possible is automatically a total luddite (or an intellectual conservative) that is to myopic to see beyond dinnertime. Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks. If you look at the history of tech evolution, this is abundantly clear. The rollouts always take longer than promised, the capabilities are always less than promised, and the actual uses are never what people initially envision. Look at 4G/LTE - even now we have not fully realized the promises made a decade ago. Looking at that history, the pace of the rollout so far in 2019 and the average life of a smartphone, I have absolutely no concerns about any smartphone being 'left behind' by 5G.
Yes, you are correct when you say [if you live in the U.S.] "there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point." But then, in 2007 the iPhone didn't have much more capability than the typical flip phone "at that point". Again, you measure tomorrow's uses based on the assumption that they will not change from today's -- and ignore AppleZulu's comprehensive debunking of that theory.
I did nothing of the sort. Rather you are extrapolating my argument further than it was intended and creating straw man arguments. Again, in bold, just to help you read:
Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks.
To use your argument about the 2007 iPhone, whether the 2007 iPhone had 3G capability or not played no roll in the development and roll out of 3G tech. We are a bit in a catch22 with 5G - there is virtually no 5G availability in the US (availability in other countries is really of no consequence to me.) There are virtually no phones that use 5G and thus virtually no one to use it. Until it's even modestly available, the main demand will be from technophiles wanting the latest capabilities. Until there's a critical mass, there will be precious little new uses for it. After such uses arise, the time frame for important/critical new uses of the technology is likely 3-5 years beyond that. All that brings us back to my argument for today - unless you are an early adopter that has no problem paying $$$ for cutting edge technology that has very little practical use it makes no sense to buy a 5G phone right now. Save your money and wait a few years. The technology will mature and improve, prices will come down, availability will increase and you can actually decide if any of these fabulous new, undiscovered uses actually matter to you.
I'll also point out (again) that much of the 5G rollout involves improvements to the infrastructure backbone of the network and all users will benefit, whether they have 5G or not.
Still, your argument fails on two points: 1) To get that critical mass takes BOTH transmitters and receivers. There's no way it will get there if, as you advocate, the receiver end sits on its butt waiting for it to happen.
So yeh, by arguing that 5G should not be added to smartphones "today" you are arguing that it shouldn't roll out. The analogy is WiFi: it could not have happened without the availability of BOTH transmitters and receivers. 5G is the same.
2) Most iPhones purchased today will be running and operational 5 years from now. Despite your dire predictions, critical mass for much of the world will occur before that -- other countries and other vendors are charging ahead. So, who wants to buy a phone that will soon be obsolete -- and it's wrong for Apple to foist something like that onto their unsuspecting customers. It would be like buying a laptop without (at one point) an ethernet port or, later, without a WiFi receiver.
Apple caved in to Qualcomm for only one reason: To get a 5G modem. So, they got it -- along with the technology to make it work. It's time they got off their butts. They owe it to their customers and the world. By sitting on their butts waiting for it, as you advocate, to mature is holding back progress for the world and short changing the customers who are trusting them and buying their phones today.
Apple, had their excuse: Their preferred vendor had failed them. Now they are out of excuses and its time for them to get off their butts and give their customers and the world what it wants and needs.
I seriously doubt that the Apple-QC deal is as cut-and-dried (or as one-sided) as you make it. Yes, Apple got 5G modem chips, but they also got licensed IP, which goes with Apple's push to create their own modem chip (legally unhindered). This is hugely significant! Remember, Apple had been poaching QC engineers from San Diego for awhile now (long before acquiring Intel's modem group). QC are not stupid; they know what Apple are up to. And the "double-dip" lawsuit looked like it wasn't going QC's way, so perhaps it was QC that caved.
You see the short-term; I see the long-term. I'm guessing QC see the long-term (as do Apple). QC realized that Apple will eventually develop their own modem chip (and can't stop it because Intel had enough IP to begin developing a 5G modem chip), and QC must accept it and make the best of it via a 6-year licensing deal.
How hard is this to understand? Why do people assess emerging tech by wrapping the limitations of the current paradigm around it? As the technology makes more bandwidth available, new high bandwidth use cases are created, and mass market users will want those new uses. Consumer service packages follow suit, tracking somewhere between charging what they can get away with for it and providing users with ever-increasing sizes for data packages.
It’s very easy to understand, but we’ve been through the rounds of the next big thing before. AI, VR, AR, IoT, heck, even 3D TV. There are a lot of big industry trends that come and then fizzle. The sturm and drang over VR and AR was pretty big when Google, Facebook, and MS came out with solutions for them, but not Apple to their doom about 3 to 4 years ago, and they have become sideshows or niches now.
We’ve asked what is the big feature of 5G, and basically every answer involves solutions not involving smartphones - the putative point of this thread with 5G on iPhones - or rather limited use cases, or the answer involves a “to be invented feature” that everyone will want, but we just don’t know now. If it is good, you should be able to outline a case or feature that is really desirable and can’t be done today. What will get people to upgrade? What is the feature selling it to consumers?
For the original iPhone, being able to browse the web was a huge desirable future. That was a huge blow away feature, and having fast Internet access was a big part of that. Nobody was confused about this and people paid the extra money for it. People got service plans at basically 2x the cost they were paying before at the time. That ride ended about 4 years ago maybe when LTE matured, devices got fast enough, displays got big enough. I haven’t desired faster bandwidth on my 6S Plus much at all. More data and better signal strength in more places? Most certainly. But 5G isn’t addressing that.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
I offered a pretty obvious use case that would make a lot of people want 5G. That others will come up with new uses that I can’t describe to you yet isn’t pie in the sky. It’s inevitable.
I don’t think you can find an example in the history of computing where more capacity, more speed, and lower latency were unwanted and weren’t used when put on the market. Sure, there are plenty of examples of tech like 3D TV that don’t catch on, but I certainly can’t think of an example where speed and capacity were left on the table.
Speed and capacity are the primary reasons people buy new computing devices to replace old ones that technically are still functional. 5G offers a big jump in speed and capacity. The only reason it would not be widely adopted is if some different, competing standard is introduced that would offer even more speed and capacity. I haven’t heard about that option; have you?
Arguing that data connections for mobile devices are as good as they’ll ever need to be is laughably nonsensical. Every single time in computing when more speed and capacity are offered, people find new ways to use all of it and then look for more. Every single time.
I can’t think of a technology more expense and less useful, even in the long run, than 5G.
If implementation works out, 5G means much faster speeds, much lower latency, and the ability to connect vastly more devices. Downloading movies faster isn't really what 5G would be about. Once you're able to download a high-resolution movie faster than you can watch it, the extra speed doesn't really mean anything to you.
5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet. When iPhone 1 was introduced, it didn't even have GPS built in. Then they added it. Apple farmed out maps to Google at first, until they realized that Google was using location information to do more things than deliver a GPS map program. The whole abrupt Apple maps introduction/fiasco happened precisely because even Apple hadn't initially realized the full implications of putting an active GPS device in everyone's pocket. Then they realized this add-on tech was going to be a core function. Now a very few short years later, a selling point for iPhones is that Apple is more attentive about making sure you can prevent all the various sundry apps loaded on your device aren't using your location data without your knowledge or permission, because lots of people have thought of new and interesting ways to use location data that didn't even exist a few years ago.
So if 5G delivers huge bandwidth, extremely low latency, and the ability to simultaneously connect a huge number of devices, you suddenly have the ability to have lots of separate devices doing things in concert, in real time and orchestrated precisely. Thinking about those GPS maps, consider the following. Right now, if you're driving with a GPS app delivering your proposed route, you can get pretty good ETA info, and in cities that have it, you can get traffic information baked in. If a jam forms up ahead and it gets big and slow enough, your map program will offer an alternative route. Pretty cool, but it's still based on rudimentary data. There's a traffic jam on the route slowing traffic to below a certain speed range. At some threshold, the mapping app will generate an alternate route, based mostly on existing stock info on traffic lights, speed limits, etc. Also, everyone else will get the same info at the same time, causing lots of people to choose the same alternate route, creating a second traffic jam. Lather, rinse and repeat.
That scenario with 5G could be very different. The cars that get into the accident instantly relay that info outward. So do most of the cars that have to stop behind the accident. Alternate routes start popping up in real time. If multiple alternates are available, different cars will get different recommendations, creating optimal distributed routing around the accident, minimizing secondary traffic jams. Add an increasing percentage of self-driving cars that respond instantly to these changes, and traffic becomes a whole new experience. That's just an obvious use case. It's the stuff that few or no people have thought of yet that will be truly remarkable.
Of course, there will also be the unintended consequences along with the sociopathic implementations that we'll also have to deal with, but there you go.
Well said and true! Historically major advances in communications technology have changed computing in profound and unexpected ways. Those who judge it based on today's uses are left behind in the dust. As you mentioned: 5G is not about downloading movies faster - although that is typically how it is portrayed and compared in the media and by those with limited vision.
All of this may be true, but it completely ignores the fact that the vast majority applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point. It's interesting how the debate on this mirrors politics in the country right now - completely black and white with no room for grey. Everyone assumes that anyone who isn't 110% for 5G in every possible device as soon as humanly possible is automatically a total luddite (or an intellectual conservative) that is to myopic to see beyond dinnertime. Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks. If you look at the history of tech evolution, this is abundantly clear. The rollouts always take longer than promised, the capabilities are always less than promised, and the actual uses are never what people initially envision. Look at 4G/LTE - even now we have not fully realized the promises made a decade ago. Looking at that history, the pace of the rollout so far in 2019 and the average life of a smartphone, I have absolutely no concerns about any smartphone being 'left behind' by 5G.
Sure, but the utility for 5G on phones doesn't emerge until it's available on phones. That's exactly the case demonstrated by my earlier reference to iPhone adding GPS as a feature. That example also demonstrated a case where Apple waited longer than they should have to realize the importance of that technology. It's quite typical for them not to get too worked up about being first with a particular feature, preferring instead to 'get it right.' Nonetheless, with GPS, they had to ditch Google in a hurry, and introduce Apple maps before it was ready, just to catch up with a rapidly growing location-based marketplace. So with 5G, they don't need to be the first ones pushing out hardware, but they can't afford to just sit on it and wait a few years to see what people do with it.
So saying "the vast majority [of 5G utility] applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point" is very much an intellectually conservative stance to take on the subject. Your statement is only true so long as smartphones don't have 5G hardware. The 5G infrastructure is coming, and soon. I'm o.k that my current device doesn't have the feature, but I'd be concerned if Apple wasn't already loading it into the pipeline. GPS was added to iPhone in 2008, and Apple Maps pushed out both prematurely and way too late in 2012. The intervening four years saw the proliferation of the use of location data emerge in a decidedly non-Apple way. Apple booted google maps and rolled out Apple maps because they realized they were already way behind, and even though their own maps weren't ready, they couldn't make location services (and a privacy- and security-based implementation of it) a core part of iOS and still have Google right in the middle of it. 5G is going to be a big deal, and they can't afford to sit back for a few years to decide how they want to get into it.
P.S. Seriously. Smartphone tech that is already ubiquitous didn't exist thirteen years ago. Think about that. In 2007, Blackberry was the smartphone king, and served primarily a business niche market. The kids who had cellphones were texting each other using number keypads, and they were getting into trouble because their texting volume was blowing out their parents' phone plans, which had a monthly cap on the number of text messages. A kid born just before iPhones came out is just now old enough for her Bat Mitzvah. The timeline between "emerging technology" and being ubiquitous is very, very short.
I can’t think of a technology more expense and less useful, even in the long run, than 5G.
If implementation works out, 5G means much faster speeds, much lower latency, and the ability to connect vastly more devices. Downloading movies faster isn't really what 5G would be about. Once you're able to download a high-resolution movie faster than you can watch it, the extra speed doesn't really mean anything to you.
5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet. When iPhone 1 was introduced, it didn't even have GPS built in. Then they added it. Apple farmed out maps to Google at first, until they realized that Google was using location information to do more things than deliver a GPS map program. The whole abrupt Apple maps introduction/fiasco happened precisely because even Apple hadn't initially realized the full implications of putting an active GPS device in everyone's pocket. Then they realized this add-on tech was going to be a core function. Now a very few short years later, a selling point for iPhones is that Apple is more attentive about making sure you can prevent all the various sundry apps loaded on your device aren't using your location data without your knowledge or permission, because lots of people have thought of new and interesting ways to use location data that didn't even exist a few years ago.
So if 5G delivers huge bandwidth, extremely low latency, and the ability to simultaneously connect a huge number of devices, you suddenly have the ability to have lots of separate devices doing things in concert, in real time and orchestrated precisely. Thinking about those GPS maps, consider the following. Right now, if you're driving with a GPS app delivering your proposed route, you can get pretty good ETA info, and in cities that have it, you can get traffic information baked in. If a jam forms up ahead and it gets big and slow enough, your map program will offer an alternative route. Pretty cool, but it's still based on rudimentary data. There's a traffic jam on the route slowing traffic to below a certain speed range. At some threshold, the mapping app will generate an alternate route, based mostly on existing stock info on traffic lights, speed limits, etc. Also, everyone else will get the same info at the same time, causing lots of people to choose the same alternate route, creating a second traffic jam. Lather, rinse and repeat.
That scenario with 5G could be very different. The cars that get into the accident instantly relay that info outward. So do most of the cars that have to stop behind the accident. Alternate routes start popping up in real time. If multiple alternates are available, different cars will get different recommendations, creating optimal distributed routing around the accident, minimizing secondary traffic jams. Add an increasing percentage of self-driving cars that respond instantly to these changes, and traffic becomes a whole new experience. That's just an obvious use case. It's the stuff that few or no people have thought of yet that will be truly remarkable.
Of course, there will also be the unintended consequences along with the sociopathic implementations that we'll also have to deal with, but there you go.
Well said and true! Historically major advances in communications technology have changed computing in profound and unexpected ways. Those who judge it based on today's uses are left behind in the dust. As you mentioned: 5G is not about downloading movies faster - although that is typically how it is portrayed and compared in the media and by those with limited vision.
All of this may be true, but it completely ignores the fact that the vast majority applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point. It's interesting how the debate on this mirrors politics in the country right now - completely black and white with no room for grey. Everyone assumes that anyone who isn't 110% for 5G in every possible device as soon as humanly possible is automatically a total luddite (or an intellectual conservative) that is to myopic to see beyond dinnertime. Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks. If you look at the history of tech evolution, this is abundantly clear. The rollouts always take longer than promised, the capabilities are always less than promised, and the actual uses are never what people initially envision. Look at 4G/LTE - even now we have not fully realized the promises made a decade ago. Looking at that history, the pace of the rollout so far in 2019 and the average life of a smartphone, I have absolutely no concerns about any smartphone being 'left behind' by 5G.
Yes, you are correct when you say [if you live in the U.S.] "there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point." But then, in 2007 the iPhone didn't have much more capability than the typical flip phone "at that point". Again, you measure tomorrow's uses based on the assumption that they will not change from today's -- and ignore AppleZulu's comprehensive debunking of that theory.
I did nothing of the sort. Rather you are extrapolating my argument further than it was intended and creating straw man arguments. Again, in bold, just to help you read:
Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks.
To use your argument about the 2007 iPhone, whether the 2007 iPhone had 3G capability or not played no roll in the development and roll out of 3G tech. We are a bit in a catch22 with 5G - there is virtually no 5G availability in the US (availability in other countries is really of no consequence to me.) There are virtually no phones that use 5G and thus virtually no one to use it. Until it's even modestly available, the main demand will be from technophiles wanting the latest capabilities. Until there's a critical mass, there will be precious little new uses for it. After such uses arise, the time frame for important/critical new uses of the technology is likely 3-5 years beyond that. All that brings us back to my argument for today - unless you are an early adopter that has no problem paying $$$ for cutting edge technology that has very little practical use it makes no sense to buy a 5G phone right now. Save your money and wait a few years. The technology will mature and improve, prices will come down, availability will increase and you can actually decide if any of these fabulous new, undiscovered uses actually matter to you.
I'll also point out (again) that much of the 5G rollout involves improvements to the infrastructure backbone of the network and all users will benefit, whether they have 5G or not.
Still, your argument fails on two points: 1) To get that critical mass takes BOTH transmitters and receivers. There's no way it will get there if, as you advocate, the receiver end sits on its butt waiting for it to happen.
So yeh, by arguing that 5G should not be added to smartphones "today" you are arguing that it shouldn't roll out. The analogy is WiFi: it could not have happened without the availability of BOTH transmitters and receivers. 5G is the same.
2) Most iPhones purchased today will be running and operational 5 years from now. Despite your dire predictions, critical mass for much of the world will occur before that -- other countries and other vendors are charging ahead. So, who wants to buy a phone that will soon be obsolete -- and it's wrong for Apple to foist something like that onto their unsuspecting customers. It would be like buying a laptop without (at one point) an ethernet port or, later, without a WiFi receiver.
Apple caved in to Qualcomm for only one reason: To get a 5G modem. So, they got it -- along with the technology to make it work. It's time they got off their butts. They owe it to their customers and the world. By sitting on their butts waiting for it, as you advocate, to mature is holding back progress for the world and short changing the customers who are trusting them and buying their phones today.
Apple, had their excuse: Their preferred vendor had failed them. Now they are out of excuses and its time for them to get off their butts and give their customers and the world what it wants and needs.
There's no current evidence that the world needs it. I daresay a large proportion of the world doesn't really give a hoot, so it's a stretch to say it even wants it.
Futurism is all well and good, but castigating people for not getting behind vague notions of possible usefullness doesn't seem like the best way to advocate.
True, there is no evidence -- if you keep your eyes closed.
Yes, indeed. GPS and 5G are different technologies. Given that they are extremely likely to end up used together in the same devices, they are not, however, unrelated. Geolocation from GPS, combined with fast, low-latency communications from 5G tech creates the possibility, as in the case I describe above, of your mapping program knowing not just where you are, but also where every other car in the area is -and where they are each trying to go- all at once. This opens up the possibility of routing traffic with coordinated efficiency that is utterly impossible with the technology available at this moment. And the current tech is light years ahead of Bob's Eye-in-the-Sky Chopper on your FM radio, which was the state-of-the-art traffic info a decade ago.
Apple Maps, Google Maps & Waze use GPS and tower triangulation to determine the traffic. What does 5G do to improve this?
In the scenario I'm imagining, 5G would enable the use of actual real-time GPS data from every car reporting in. It could also make it possible to use data on direction, speed, all or part of data on intended destination, etc. This raises the usual privacy implications that would have to be dealt with appropriately, but the idea is that, because 5G can connect to large numbers of devices with high speed and low latency, it would be possible to make available traffic data granularity that is only hinted at by things like tower triangulation and periodic pings from GPS.
The current system can be used to paint areas on your map with colors that estimate ranges of speed on the route. In my experience, the speed indicators are reasonably accurate within the fairly wide-range categories, but it's definitely not anywhere near real-time. It's pretty common to end up in a slowdown long before the yellow or red pops up on the map, or alternatively, to zip right through an area where the traffic info on the map is a echo of an earlier slowdown that has been resolved.
All this is a speculation on my part of a possible implementation of 5G tech. This is in service of the main point, which is that saying "there is no use for 5G" is unimaginative and short-sighted.
5G is not necessary for your proposed use.
imo, 5G is a fixed wireless play that the carriers are hyping for cellular so they can get the mobile side to subsidize the fixed side. mmWave is almost useless to a moving cellphone or one inside any structure.
"According to Kuo's predictions, the new design will help improve supplier revenue and profitability, and could help increase shipments to 85 million units in 2020, 10 million more than the 75 million reckoned to happen in 2019."
Increase shipments of what to 85 million units in 2020?
I expect to see shipments of 200 million+ iPhones in 2020.
The 5G models won’t go on sale until September 2020. Kuo's talking about 85 million for Sept/Oct/Nov/Dec as far as I can tell.
How hard is this to understand? Why do people assess emerging tech by wrapping the limitations of the current paradigm around it? As the technology makes more bandwidth available, new high bandwidth use cases are created, and mass market users will want those new uses. Consumer service packages follow suit, tracking somewhere between charging what they can get away with for it and providing users with ever-increasing sizes for data packages.
It’s very easy to understand, but we’ve been through the rounds of the next big thing before. AI, VR, AR, IoT, heck, even 3D TV. There are a lot of big industry trends that come and then fizzle. The sturm and drang over VR and AR was pretty big when Google, Facebook, and MS came out with solutions for them, but not Apple to their doom about 3 to 4 years ago, and they have become sideshows or niches now.
We’ve asked what is the big feature of 5G, and basically every answer involves solutions not involving smartphones - the putative point of this thread with 5G on iPhones - or rather limited use cases, or the answer involves a “to be invented feature” that everyone will want, but we just don’t know now. If it is good, you should be able to outline a case or feature that is really desirable and can’t be done today. What will get people to upgrade? What is the feature selling it to consumers?
For the original iPhone, being able to browse the web was a huge desirable future. That was a huge blow away feature, and having fast Internet access was a big part of that. Nobody was confused about this and people paid the extra money for it. People got service plans at basically 2x the cost they were paying before at the time. That ride ended about 4 years ago maybe when LTE matured, devices got fast enough, displays got big enough. I haven’t desired faster bandwidth on my 6S Plus much at all. More data and better signal strength in more places? Most certainly. But 5G isn’t addressing that.
Siting old, failed technology (or, yet to mature technology) as an excuse is a very poor excuse. The same for "what we have today is good enough". Both are poor excuses for a major tech leader sitting on its butt and blocking technologic progress for no apparent reason.
Like in times past, and other product categories, Apple doesn’t have to be first here. No one is saying that Apple shouldn’t ship 5G products. What some people are saying is that Apple can wait. They don’t have to be first. That’s not blocking technological progress. That’s just product timing and understanding the market.
There are good reasons to wait for 5G. The market penetration is in early adopter phase, the hardware hasn’t matured. This results in poor products. They can wait. You guys think there is a market changing feature that 5G will provide. We, well I, haven’t seen what that is and don’t agree with people who suggested such and such feature as being big.
Again, it’s not that we don’t want 5G. The question is what is the rush? Unfortunately, none of the answers so far are what I really want.
How hard is this to understand? Why do people assess emerging tech by wrapping the limitations of the current paradigm around it? As the technology makes more bandwidth available, new high bandwidth use cases are created, and mass market users will want those new uses. Consumer service packages follow suit, tracking somewhere between charging what they can get away with for it and providing users with ever-increasing sizes for data packages.
It’s very easy to understand, but we’ve been through the rounds of the next big thing before. AI, VR, AR, IoT, heck, even 3D TV. There are a lot of big industry trends that come and then fizzle. The sturm and drang over VR and AR was pretty big when Google, Facebook, and MS came out with solutions for them, but not Apple to their doom about 3 to 4 years ago, and they have become sideshows or niches now.
We’ve asked what is the big feature of 5G, and basically every answer involves solutions not involving smartphones - the putative point of this thread with 5G on iPhones - or rather limited use cases, or the answer involves a “to be invented feature” that everyone will want, but we just don’t know now. If it is good, you should be able to outline a case or feature that is really desirable and can’t be done today. What will get people to upgrade? What is the feature selling it to consumers?
For the original iPhone, being able to browse the web was a huge desirable future. That was a huge blow away feature, and having fast Internet access was a big part of that. Nobody was confused about this and people paid the extra money for it. People got service plans at basically 2x the cost they were paying before at the time. That ride ended about 4 years ago maybe when LTE matured, devices got fast enough, displays got big enough. I haven’t desired faster bandwidth on my 6S Plus much at all. More data and better signal strength in more places? Most certainly. But 5G isn’t addressing that.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.
I offered a pretty obvious use case that would make a lot of people want 5G. That others will come up with new uses that I can’t describe to you yet isn’t pie in the sky. It’s inevitable.
I don’t think you can find an example in the history of computing where more capacity, more speed, and lower latency were unwanted and weren’t used when put on the market. Sure, there are plenty of examples of tech like 3D TV that don’t catch on, but I certainly can’t think of an example where speed and capacity were left on the table.
Speed and capacity are the primary reasons people buy new computing devices to replace old ones that technically are still functional. 5G offers a big jump in speed and capacity. The only reason it would not be widely adopted is if some different, competing standard is introduced that would offer even more speed and capacity. I haven’t heard about that option; have you?
Arguing that data connections for mobile devices are as good as they’ll ever need to be is laughably nonsensical. Every single time in computing when more speed and capacity are offered, people find new ways to use all of it and then look for more. Every single time.
I was rather nonplussed by your traffic control idea as it was mostly an incremental improvement over existing navigation features (with a pretty long ramp up to get enough users to use navigation while driving), wasn’t sure if it would be an actual improvement over existing navigation capabilities, and wouldn’t upgrade to a 5G smartphone for it. I don’t think it would get people to upgrade. The only thing getting people to upgrade these days is a broken phone.
Fiber service has been available for about a decade or so. That’s a 10x increase in bandwidth, probably 100x for uploads, The rollout has been really really slow. If it provided enough value, there would be a lot of fiber going into people’s homes than there are today. It didn’t convince people to buy PCs faster either. Google’s bet on it has not been gangbusters.
I’m not anti-technology or anti-5G here. There just isn’t a need to race to be first or even second with this.
How hard is this to understand? Why do people assess emerging tech by wrapping the limitations of the current paradigm around it? As the technology makes more bandwidth available, new high bandwidth use cases are created, and mass market users will want those new uses. Consumer service packages follow suit, tracking somewhere between charging what they can get away with for it and providing users with ever-increasing sizes for data packages.
It’s very easy to understand, but we’ve been through the rounds of the next big thing before. AI, VR, AR, IoT, heck, even 3D TV. There are a lot of big industry trends that come and then fizzle. The sturm and drang over VR and AR was pretty big when Google, Facebook, and MS came out with solutions for them, but not Apple to their doom about 3 to 4 years ago, and they have become sideshows or niches now.
We’ve asked what is the big feature of 5G, and basically every answer involves solutions not involving smartphones - the putative point of this thread with 5G on iPhones - or rather limited use cases, or the answer involves a “to be invented feature” that everyone will want, but we just don’t know now. If it is good, you should be able to outline a case or feature that is really desirable and can’t be done today. What will get people to upgrade? What is the feature selling it to consumers?
For the original iPhone, being able to browse the web was a huge desirable future. That was a huge blow away feature, and having fast Internet access was a big part of that. Nobody was confused about this and people paid the extra money for it. People got service plans at basically 2x the cost they were paying before at the time. That ride ended about 4 years ago maybe when LTE matured, devices got fast enough, displays got big enough. I haven’t desired faster bandwidth on my 6S Plus much at all. More data and better signal strength in more places? Most certainly. But 5G isn’t addressing that.
Siting old, failed technology (or, yet to mature technology) as an excuse is a very poor excuse. The same for "what we have today is good enough". Both are poor excuses for a major tech leader sitting on its butt and blocking technologic progress for no apparent reason.
Like in times past, and other product categories, Apple doesn’t have to be first here. No one is saying that Apple shouldn’t ship 5G products. What some people are saying is that Apple can wait. They don’t have to be first. That’s not blocking technological progress. That’s just product timing and understanding the market.
There are good reasons to wait for 5G. The market penetration is in early adopter phase, the hardware hasn’t matured. This results in poor products. They can wait. You guys think there is a market changing feature that 5G will provide. We, well I, haven’t seen what that is and don’t agree with people who suggested such and such feature as being big.
Again, it’s not that we don’t want 5G. The question is what is the rush? Unfortunately, none of the answers so far are what I really want.
LOL... They are NOT first. Even if they released one today, they would be far from first. But very quickly they are moving from being "not first" to a laggard late to market.
And the only thing "not mature" about 5G is the U.S. It is taking a pretty childish stance towards it -- blocking the most advanced products from its market.
I can’t think of a technology more expense and less useful, even in the long run, than 5G.
If implementation works out, 5G means much faster speeds, much lower latency, and the ability to connect vastly more devices. Downloading movies faster isn't really what 5G would be about. Once you're able to download a high-resolution movie faster than you can watch it, the extra speed doesn't really mean anything to you.
5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet. When iPhone 1 was introduced, it didn't even have GPS built in. Then they added it. Apple farmed out maps to Google at first, until they realized that Google was using location information to do more things than deliver a GPS map program. The whole abrupt Apple maps introduction/fiasco happened precisely because even Apple hadn't initially realized the full implications of putting an active GPS device in everyone's pocket. Then they realized this add-on tech was going to be a core function. Now a very few short years later, a selling point for iPhones is that Apple is more attentive about making sure you can prevent all the various sundry apps loaded on your device aren't using your location data without your knowledge or permission, because lots of people have thought of new and interesting ways to use location data that didn't even exist a few years ago.
So if 5G delivers huge bandwidth, extremely low latency, and the ability to simultaneously connect a huge number of devices, you suddenly have the ability to have lots of separate devices doing things in concert, in real time and orchestrated precisely. Thinking about those GPS maps, consider the following. Right now, if you're driving with a GPS app delivering your proposed route, you can get pretty good ETA info, and in cities that have it, you can get traffic information baked in. If a jam forms up ahead and it gets big and slow enough, your map program will offer an alternative route. Pretty cool, but it's still based on rudimentary data. There's a traffic jam on the route slowing traffic to below a certain speed range. At some threshold, the mapping app will generate an alternate route, based mostly on existing stock info on traffic lights, speed limits, etc. Also, everyone else will get the same info at the same time, causing lots of people to choose the same alternate route, creating a second traffic jam. Lather, rinse and repeat.
That scenario with 5G could be very different. The cars that get into the accident instantly relay that info outward. So do most of the cars that have to stop behind the accident. Alternate routes start popping up in real time. If multiple alternates are available, different cars will get different recommendations, creating optimal distributed routing around the accident, minimizing secondary traffic jams. Add an increasing percentage of self-driving cars that respond instantly to these changes, and traffic becomes a whole new experience. That's just an obvious use case. It's the stuff that few or no people have thought of yet that will be truly remarkable.
Of course, there will also be the unintended consequences along with the sociopathic implementations that we'll also have to deal with, but there you go.
Well said and true! Historically major advances in communications technology have changed computing in profound and unexpected ways. Those who judge it based on today's uses are left behind in the dust. As you mentioned: 5G is not about downloading movies faster - although that is typically how it is portrayed and compared in the media and by those with limited vision.
All of this may be true, but it completely ignores the fact that the vast majority applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point. It's interesting how the debate on this mirrors politics in the country right now - completely black and white with no room for grey. Everyone assumes that anyone who isn't 110% for 5G in every possible device as soon as humanly possible is automatically a total luddite (or an intellectual conservative) that is to myopic to see beyond dinnertime. Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks. If you look at the history of tech evolution, this is abundantly clear. The rollouts always take longer than promised, the capabilities are always less than promised, and the actual uses are never what people initially envision. Look at 4G/LTE - even now we have not fully realized the promises made a decade ago. Looking at that history, the pace of the rollout so far in 2019 and the average life of a smartphone, I have absolutely no concerns about any smartphone being 'left behind' by 5G.
Sure, but the utility for 5G on phones doesn't emerge until it's available on phones. That's exactly the case demonstrated by my earlier reference to iPhone adding GPS as a feature. That example also demonstrated a case where Apple waited longer than they should have to realize the importance of that technology. It's quite typical for them not to get too worked up about being first with a particular feature, preferring instead to 'get it right.' Nonetheless, with GPS, they had to ditch Google in a hurry, and introduce Apple maps before it was ready, just to catch up with a rapidly growing location-based marketplace. So with 5G, they don't need to be the first ones pushing out hardware, but they can't afford to just sit on it and wait a few years to see what people do with it.
So saying "the vast majority [of 5G utility] applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point" is very much an intellectually conservative stance to take on the subject. Your statement is only true so long as smartphones don't have 5G hardware. The 5G infrastructure is coming, and soon. I'm o.k that my current device doesn't have the feature, but I'd be concerned if Apple wasn't already loading it into the pipeline. GPS was added to iPhone in 2008, and Apple Maps pushed out both prematurely and way too late in 2012. The intervening four years saw the proliferation of the use of location data emerge in a decidedly non-Apple way. Apple booted google maps and rolled out Apple maps because they realized they were already way behind, and even though their own maps weren't ready, they couldn't make location services (and a privacy- and security-based implementation of it) a core part of iOS and still have Google right in the middle of it. 5G is going to be a big deal, and they can't afford to sit back for a few years to decide how they want to get into it.
P.S. Seriously. Smartphone tech that is already ubiquitous didn't exist thirteen years ago. Think about that. In 2007, Blackberry was the smartphone king, and served primarily a business niche market. The kids who had cellphones were texting each other using number keypads, and they were getting into trouble because their texting volume was blowing out their parents' phone plans, which had a monthly cap on the number of text messages. A kid born just before iPhones came out is just now old enough for her Bat Mitzvah. The timeline between "emerging technology" and being ubiquitous is very, very short.
I can’t think of a technology more expense and less useful, even in the long run, than 5G.
If implementation works out, 5G means much faster speeds, much lower latency, and the ability to connect vastly more devices. Downloading movies faster isn't really what 5G would be about. Once you're able to download a high-resolution movie faster than you can watch it, the extra speed doesn't really mean anything to you.
5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet. When iPhone 1 was introduced, it didn't even have GPS built in. Then they added it. Apple farmed out maps to Google at first, until they realized that Google was using location information to do more things than deliver a GPS map program. The whole abrupt Apple maps introduction/fiasco happened precisely because even Apple hadn't initially realized the full implications of putting an active GPS device in everyone's pocket. Then they realized this add-on tech was going to be a core function. Now a very few short years later, a selling point for iPhones is that Apple is more attentive about making sure you can prevent all the various sundry apps loaded on your device aren't using your location data without your knowledge or permission, because lots of people have thought of new and interesting ways to use location data that didn't even exist a few years ago.
So if 5G delivers huge bandwidth, extremely low latency, and the ability to simultaneously connect a huge number of devices, you suddenly have the ability to have lots of separate devices doing things in concert, in real time and orchestrated precisely. Thinking about those GPS maps, consider the following. Right now, if you're driving with a GPS app delivering your proposed route, you can get pretty good ETA info, and in cities that have it, you can get traffic information baked in. If a jam forms up ahead and it gets big and slow enough, your map program will offer an alternative route. Pretty cool, but it's still based on rudimentary data. There's a traffic jam on the route slowing traffic to below a certain speed range. At some threshold, the mapping app will generate an alternate route, based mostly on existing stock info on traffic lights, speed limits, etc. Also, everyone else will get the same info at the same time, causing lots of people to choose the same alternate route, creating a second traffic jam. Lather, rinse and repeat.
That scenario with 5G could be very different. The cars that get into the accident instantly relay that info outward. So do most of the cars that have to stop behind the accident. Alternate routes start popping up in real time. If multiple alternates are available, different cars will get different recommendations, creating optimal distributed routing around the accident, minimizing secondary traffic jams. Add an increasing percentage of self-driving cars that respond instantly to these changes, and traffic becomes a whole new experience. That's just an obvious use case. It's the stuff that few or no people have thought of yet that will be truly remarkable.
Of course, there will also be the unintended consequences along with the sociopathic implementations that we'll also have to deal with, but there you go.
Well said and true! Historically major advances in communications technology have changed computing in profound and unexpected ways. Those who judge it based on today's uses are left behind in the dust. As you mentioned: 5G is not about downloading movies faster - although that is typically how it is portrayed and compared in the media and by those with limited vision.
All of this may be true, but it completely ignores the fact that the vast majority applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point. It's interesting how the debate on this mirrors politics in the country right now - completely black and white with no room for grey. Everyone assumes that anyone who isn't 110% for 5G in every possible device as soon as humanly possible is automatically a total luddite (or an intellectual conservative) that is to myopic to see beyond dinnertime. Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks. If you look at the history of tech evolution, this is abundantly clear. The rollouts always take longer than promised, the capabilities are always less than promised, and the actual uses are never what people initially envision. Look at 4G/LTE - even now we have not fully realized the promises made a decade ago. Looking at that history, the pace of the rollout so far in 2019 and the average life of a smartphone, I have absolutely no concerns about any smartphone being 'left behind' by 5G.
Yes, you are correct when you say [if you live in the U.S.] "there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point." But then, in 2007 the iPhone didn't have much more capability than the typical flip phone "at that point". Again, you measure tomorrow's uses based on the assumption that they will not change from today's -- and ignore AppleZulu's comprehensive debunking of that theory.
I did nothing of the sort. Rather you are extrapolating my argument further than it was intended and creating straw man arguments. Again, in bold, just to help you read:
Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks.
To use your argument about the 2007 iPhone, whether the 2007 iPhone had 3G capability or not played no roll in the development and roll out of 3G tech. We are a bit in a catch22 with 5G - there is virtually no 5G availability in the US (availability in other countries is really of no consequence to me.) There are virtually no phones that use 5G and thus virtually no one to use it. Until it's even modestly available, the main demand will be from technophiles wanting the latest capabilities. Until there's a critical mass, there will be precious little new uses for it. After such uses arise, the time frame for important/critical new uses of the technology is likely 3-5 years beyond that. All that brings us back to my argument for today - unless you are an early adopter that has no problem paying $$$ for cutting edge technology that has very little practical use it makes no sense to buy a 5G phone right now. Save your money and wait a few years. The technology will mature and improve, prices will come down, availability will increase and you can actually decide if any of these fabulous new, undiscovered uses actually matter to you.
I'll also point out (again) that much of the 5G rollout involves improvements to the infrastructure backbone of the network and all users will benefit, whether they have 5G or not.
Still, your argument fails on two points: 1) To get that critical mass takes BOTH transmitters and receivers. There's no way it will get there if, as you advocate, the receiver end sits on its butt waiting for it to happen.
So yeh, by arguing that 5G should not be added to smartphones "today" you are arguing that it shouldn't roll out. The analogy is WiFi: it could not have happened without the availability of BOTH transmitters and receivers. 5G is the same.
2) Most iPhones purchased today will be running and operational 5 years from now. Despite your dire predictions, critical mass for much of the world will occur before that -- other countries and other vendors are charging ahead. So, who wants to buy a phone that will soon be obsolete -- and it's wrong for Apple to foist something like that onto their unsuspecting customers. It would be like buying a laptop without (at one point) an ethernet port or, later, without a WiFi receiver.
Apple caved in to Qualcomm for only one reason: To get a 5G modem. So, they got it -- along with the technology to make it work. It's time they got off their butts. They owe it to their customers and the world. By sitting on their butts waiting for it, as you advocate, to mature is holding back progress for the world and short changing the customers who are trusting them and buying their phones today.
Apple, had their excuse: Their preferred vendor had failed them. Now they are out of excuses and its time for them to get off their butts and give their customers and the world what it wants and needs.
Virtually every potential use of 5G that I have seen is not relevant to smartphones. If those uses truly are worth having, the necessary devices will come, whether smartphones have 5G capabilities or not. If we accept your argument, the mobile carriers would not be doing any infrastructure work for 5G because there are no devices. What you're arguing is that we should all engage in technological altruism and buy devices that are more expensive, functionally compromised in other areas and have features we can't use simply so the technology can be developed in the hopes that there is some future use that no one has dreamed up yet.
Any phone purchased today will be bordering on obsolete in 5 years. I've you are that concerned about 5G right now, you won't be happy with a 5 year old phone. Look at the history of every other mobile transition - how long have the rollouts taken? Then how long has it taken for the technology to become truly necessary? The amount of utterly blind and irrational optimism here is astounding. 5G is in its infancy and by everyone's admission has no current practical use (beyond increasing download speeds.) Now you think that with 5 years uses which you can't even think of will not only come to light but become fully developed and ubiquitous enough that anyone without 5G will be a technological cripple. Wow. Just wow.
And again, today's iPhone will continue to work perfectly well long after 5G actually rolls out. You can throw your money on technological boondoggles. I'll spend my money on tech I can use.
Applezulu and Avon have provided a number of detailed uses for 5G, you should go back and read them.
And I didn't say that iPhones needed to show the carriers the way. Like any communications technology, it takes both transmitters and receivers to make it work. If Apple continues to drag their feet they are no only falling behind other smart phone vendors but holding up 5G technology for the rest of us. Since they have access to the technology, that is both wrong and stupid.
And, we don't have wait 5 years for it appear. It is being rolled out right now today. China just announced a nationwide roll-out and other nations are working hard at it. And, even here in the U.S. where we have blocked the technological leader and without government assistance, even we are rolling it out in major cities.
Seems like the only difference between 12 and 12 Pro could be 5G. Well, that and the Pro will only be plus-sized to deal with all the extra volume and poor energy usage of 5G hardware.
Applezulu and Avon have provided a number of detailed uses for 5G, you should go back and read them.
And I didn't say that iPhones needed to show the carriers the way. Like any communications technology, it takes both transmitters and receivers to make it work. If Apple continues to drag their feet they are no only falling behind other smart phone vendors but holding up 5G technology for the rest of us. Since they have access to the technology, that is both wrong and stupid.
And, we don't have wait 5 years for it appear. It is being rolled out right now today. China just announced a nationwide roll-out and other nations are working hard at it. And, even here in the U.S. where we have blocked the technological leader and without government assistance, even we are rolling it out in major cities.
Apple needs to get its butt in gear.
Yes, I read all of Zulu's comments. I suggest you do the same. Aside from generally agreeing with your position, s/he only puts forth 2 'new' uses of 5G: real-time traffic information and coordination and better location identification. Beyond that s/he says "5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet." The traffic information use is about cars, not phones. Smartphones only factor in peripherally. The only real capability that 5G will add to this is the increased number of connections. Speed and latency isn't a factor. A car can't make adjustments in milliseconds and a driver most certainly can't. Beyond that, it requires a critical mass of properly equipped cars and the automotive industry moves about an order of magnitude slower than the smartphone industry. Even if every new car sold today suddenly had the technology to create such a system it would be 3-5 years minimum before it was useful. That's assuming the standards and protocols for inter-car communications have been agreed upon... oops. There goes another 5 years.
Yes, 5G is being rolled out today. Verizon has coverage in 11 cities and AT&T has coverage in 21 cities!!! (well, make that some coverage in those cities - Minneapolis is included and we have about 8 square blocks of coverage.) China's roll out just began this fall as well. I remember a year ago everyone was going through contortions about Apple not having a 5G phone yet because '5G is coming in 2019! We're going to miss the boat!' well, here we are at the end of 2019 and the 5G coverage is minimal at best. I just checked Verizon's web site - there are a whopping 4 smartphones that have 5G capability.
I get that you're excited about the technology, but don't let your excitement get in the way of any rational thought over what it will actually do and how soon that will happen. In all of the reading I've done, no one has proposed any actual smartphone uses for 5G. Even you admit it's about enabling new uses rather than improving current uses. Like I said above - 5G will come in due time but just like every other technological advancement in the past it will take time and the way it evolves will be far different from what anyone thinks right now. There are bigger things to stress about than whether your phone has 5G
Seems like the only difference between 12 and 12 Pro could be 5G. Well, that and the Pro will only be plus-sized to deal with all the extra volume and poor energy usage of 5G hardware.
Not really very Pro at all to me.
The 2020 iPhones are rumored to be:
1. 5.4”, 6.1” and 6.7” all OLED displays 2. iPhone 4/4S like industrial design 3. Time of flight camera sensors for AR, Face ID 4. 5G 5. Who knows what else
The new industrial design and display sizes are going to be huge as it represents the first real change in a long while, since the iPhone 6 models if you don’t consider the metal and glass sandwich industrial design in the iPhone 8 models and after a big change.
I can’t think of a technology more expense and less useful, even in the long run, than 5G.
If implementation works out, 5G means much faster speeds, much lower latency, and the ability to connect vastly more devices. Downloading movies faster isn't really what 5G would be about. Once you're able to download a high-resolution movie faster than you can watch it, the extra speed doesn't really mean anything to you.
5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet. When iPhone 1 was introduced, it didn't even have GPS built in. Then they added it. Apple farmed out maps to Google at first, until they realized that Google was using location information to do more things than deliver a GPS map program. The whole abrupt Apple maps introduction/fiasco happened precisely because even Apple hadn't initially realized the full implications of putting an active GPS device in everyone's pocket. Then they realized this add-on tech was going to be a core function. Now a very few short years later, a selling point for iPhones is that Apple is more attentive about making sure you can prevent all the various sundry apps loaded on your device aren't using your location data without your knowledge or permission, because lots of people have thought of new and interesting ways to use location data that didn't even exist a few years ago.
So if 5G delivers huge bandwidth, extremely low latency, and the ability to simultaneously connect a huge number of devices, you suddenly have the ability to have lots of separate devices doing things in concert, in real time and orchestrated precisely. Thinking about those GPS maps, consider the following. Right now, if you're driving with a GPS app delivering your proposed route, you can get pretty good ETA info, and in cities that have it, you can get traffic information baked in. If a jam forms up ahead and it gets big and slow enough, your map program will offer an alternative route. Pretty cool, but it's still based on rudimentary data. There's a traffic jam on the route slowing traffic to below a certain speed range. At some threshold, the mapping app will generate an alternate route, based mostly on existing stock info on traffic lights, speed limits, etc. Also, everyone else will get the same info at the same time, causing lots of people to choose the same alternate route, creating a second traffic jam. Lather, rinse and repeat.
That scenario with 5G could be very different. The cars that get into the accident instantly relay that info outward. So do most of the cars that have to stop behind the accident. Alternate routes start popping up in real time. If multiple alternates are available, different cars will get different recommendations, creating optimal distributed routing around the accident, minimizing secondary traffic jams. Add an increasing percentage of self-driving cars that respond instantly to these changes, and traffic becomes a whole new experience. That's just an obvious use case. It's the stuff that few or no people have thought of yet that will be truly remarkable.
Of course, there will also be the unintended consequences along with the sociopathic implementations that we'll also have to deal with, but there you go.
Well said and true! Historically major advances in communications technology have changed computing in profound and unexpected ways. Those who judge it based on today's uses are left behind in the dust. As you mentioned: 5G is not about downloading movies faster - although that is typically how it is portrayed and compared in the media and by those with limited vision.
All of this may be true, but it completely ignores the fact that the vast majority applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point. It's interesting how the debate on this mirrors politics in the country right now - completely black and white with no room for grey. Everyone assumes that anyone who isn't 110% for 5G in every possible device as soon as humanly possible is automatically a total luddite (or an intellectual conservative) that is to myopic to see beyond dinnertime. Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks. If you look at the history of tech evolution, this is abundantly clear. The rollouts always take longer than promised, the capabilities are always less than promised, and the actual uses are never what people initially envision. Look at 4G/LTE - even now we have not fully realized the promises made a decade ago. Looking at that history, the pace of the rollout so far in 2019 and the average life of a smartphone, I have absolutely no concerns about any smartphone being 'left behind' by 5G.
Sure, but the utility for 5G on phones doesn't emerge until it's available on phones. That's exactly the case demonstrated by my earlier reference to iPhone adding GPS as a feature. That example also demonstrated a case where Apple waited longer than they should have to realize the importance of that technology. It's quite typical for them not to get too worked up about being first with a particular feature, preferring instead to 'get it right.' Nonetheless, with GPS, they had to ditch Google in a hurry, and introduce Apple maps before it was ready, just to catch up with a rapidly growing location-based marketplace. So with 5G, they don't need to be the first ones pushing out hardware, but they can't afford to just sit on it and wait a few years to see what people do with it.
So saying "the vast majority [of 5G utility] applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point" is very much an intellectually conservative stance to take on the subject. Your statement is only true so long as smartphones don't have 5G hardware. The 5G infrastructure is coming, and soon. I'm o.k that my current device doesn't have the feature, but I'd be concerned if Apple wasn't already loading it into the pipeline. GPS was added to iPhone in 2008, and Apple Maps pushed out both prematurely and way too late in 2012. The intervening four years saw the proliferation of the use of location data emerge in a decidedly non-Apple way. Apple booted google maps and rolled out Apple maps because they realized they were already way behind, and even though their own maps weren't ready, they couldn't make location services (and a privacy- and security-based implementation of it) a core part of iOS and still have Google right in the middle of it. 5G is going to be a big deal, and they can't afford to sit back for a few years to decide how they want to get into it.
P.S. Seriously. Smartphone tech that is already ubiquitous didn't exist thirteen years ago. Think about that. In 2007, Blackberry was the smartphone king, and served primarily a business niche market. The kids who had cellphones were texting each other using number keypads, and they were getting into trouble because their texting volume was blowing out their parents' phone plans, which had a monthly cap on the number of text messages. A kid born just before iPhones came out is just now old enough for her Bat Mitzvah. The timeline between "emerging technology" and being ubiquitous is very, very short.
I can’t think of a technology more expense and less useful, even in the long run, than 5G.
If implementation works out, 5G means much faster speeds, much lower latency, and the ability to connect vastly more devices. Downloading movies faster isn't really what 5G would be about. Once you're able to download a high-resolution movie faster than you can watch it, the extra speed doesn't really mean anything to you.
5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet. When iPhone 1 was introduced, it didn't even have GPS built in. Then they added it. Apple farmed out maps to Google at first, until they realized that Google was using location information to do more things than deliver a GPS map program. The whole abrupt Apple maps introduction/fiasco happened precisely because even Apple hadn't initially realized the full implications of putting an active GPS device in everyone's pocket. Then they realized this add-on tech was going to be a core function. Now a very few short years later, a selling point for iPhones is that Apple is more attentive about making sure you can prevent all the various sundry apps loaded on your device aren't using your location data without your knowledge or permission, because lots of people have thought of new and interesting ways to use location data that didn't even exist a few years ago.
So if 5G delivers huge bandwidth, extremely low latency, and the ability to simultaneously connect a huge number of devices, you suddenly have the ability to have lots of separate devices doing things in concert, in real time and orchestrated precisely. Thinking about those GPS maps, consider the following. Right now, if you're driving with a GPS app delivering your proposed route, you can get pretty good ETA info, and in cities that have it, you can get traffic information baked in. If a jam forms up ahead and it gets big and slow enough, your map program will offer an alternative route. Pretty cool, but it's still based on rudimentary data. There's a traffic jam on the route slowing traffic to below a certain speed range. At some threshold, the mapping app will generate an alternate route, based mostly on existing stock info on traffic lights, speed limits, etc. Also, everyone else will get the same info at the same time, causing lots of people to choose the same alternate route, creating a second traffic jam. Lather, rinse and repeat.
That scenario with 5G could be very different. The cars that get into the accident instantly relay that info outward. So do most of the cars that have to stop behind the accident. Alternate routes start popping up in real time. If multiple alternates are available, different cars will get different recommendations, creating optimal distributed routing around the accident, minimizing secondary traffic jams. Add an increasing percentage of self-driving cars that respond instantly to these changes, and traffic becomes a whole new experience. That's just an obvious use case. It's the stuff that few or no people have thought of yet that will be truly remarkable.
Of course, there will also be the unintended consequences along with the sociopathic implementations that we'll also have to deal with, but there you go.
Well said and true! Historically major advances in communications technology have changed computing in profound and unexpected ways. Those who judge it based on today's uses are left behind in the dust. As you mentioned: 5G is not about downloading movies faster - although that is typically how it is portrayed and compared in the media and by those with limited vision.
All of this may be true, but it completely ignores the fact that the vast majority applies to non-smartphone applications and there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point. It's interesting how the debate on this mirrors politics in the country right now - completely black and white with no room for grey. Everyone assumes that anyone who isn't 110% for 5G in every possible device as soon as humanly possible is automatically a total luddite (or an intellectual conservative) that is to myopic to see beyond dinnertime. Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks. If you look at the history of tech evolution, this is abundantly clear. The rollouts always take longer than promised, the capabilities are always less than promised, and the actual uses are never what people initially envision. Look at 4G/LTE - even now we have not fully realized the promises made a decade ago. Looking at that history, the pace of the rollout so far in 2019 and the average life of a smartphone, I have absolutely no concerns about any smartphone being 'left behind' by 5G.
Yes, you are correct when you say [if you live in the U.S.] "there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point." But then, in 2007 the iPhone didn't have much more capability than the typical flip phone "at that point". Again, you measure tomorrow's uses based on the assumption that they will not change from today's -- and ignore AppleZulu's comprehensive debunking of that theory.
I did nothing of the sort. Rather you are extrapolating my argument further than it was intended and creating straw man arguments. Again, in bold, just to help you read:
Nowhere in my post did I say 5G shouldn't roll out. Nowhere did I say that there would never be any uses for it. Nowhere did I say smartphones should never have 5G capability. What I said is at this time (and for the near future) there are virtually no benefits to adding it to a smartphone and there are significant drawbacks.
To use your argument about the 2007 iPhone, whether the 2007 iPhone had 3G capability or not played no roll in the development and roll out of 3G tech. We are a bit in a catch22 with 5G - there is virtually no 5G availability in the US (availability in other countries is really of no consequence to me.) There are virtually no phones that use 5G and thus virtually no one to use it. Until it's even modestly available, the main demand will be from technophiles wanting the latest capabilities. Until there's a critical mass, there will be precious little new uses for it. After such uses arise, the time frame for important/critical new uses of the technology is likely 3-5 years beyond that. All that brings us back to my argument for today - unless you are an early adopter that has no problem paying $$$ for cutting edge technology that has very little practical use it makes no sense to buy a 5G phone right now. Save your money and wait a few years. The technology will mature and improve, prices will come down, availability will increase and you can actually decide if any of these fabulous new, undiscovered uses actually matter to you.
I'll also point out (again) that much of the 5G rollout involves improvements to the infrastructure backbone of the network and all users will benefit, whether they have 5G or not.
Still, your argument fails on two points: 1) To get that critical mass takes BOTH transmitters and receivers. There's no way it will get there if, as you advocate, the receiver end sits on its butt waiting for it to happen.
So yeh, by arguing that 5G should not be added to smartphones "today" you are arguing that it shouldn't roll out. The analogy is WiFi: it could not have happened without the availability of BOTH transmitters and receivers. 5G is the same.
2) Most iPhones purchased today will be running and operational 5 years from now. Despite your dire predictions, critical mass for much of the world will occur before that -- other countries and other vendors are charging ahead. So, who wants to buy a phone that will soon be obsolete -- and it's wrong for Apple to foist something like that onto their unsuspecting customers. It would be like buying a laptop without (at one point) an ethernet port or, later, without a WiFi receiver.
Apple caved in to Qualcomm for only one reason: To get a 5G modem. So, they got it -- along with the technology to make it work. It's time they got off their butts. They owe it to their customers and the world. By sitting on their butts waiting for it, as you advocate, to mature is holding back progress for the world and short changing the customers who are trusting them and buying their phones today.
Apple, had their excuse: Their preferred vendor had failed them. Now they are out of excuses and its time for them to get off their butts and give their customers and the world what it wants and needs.
There's no current evidence that the world needs it. I daresay a large proportion of the world doesn't really give a hoot, so it's a stretch to say it even wants it.
Futurism is all well and good, but castigating people for not getting behind vague notions of possible usefullness doesn't seem like the best way to advocate.
True, there is no evidence -- if you keep your eyes closed.
I'm holding my eyes open; how is the world visaibily suffering from a lack of 5G?
You also seem to be somewhat contradicting this gentleman:
Yes, you are correct when you say [if you live in the U.S.] "there is little to nothing that requires your smartphone to have 5G capability at this point."
Applezulu and Avon have provided a number of detailed uses for 5G, you should go back and read them.
And I didn't say that iPhones needed to show the carriers the way. Like any communications technology, it takes both transmitters and receivers to make it work. If Apple continues to drag their feet they are no only falling behind other smart phone vendors but holding up 5G technology for the rest of us. Since they have access to the technology, that is both wrong and stupid.
And, we don't have wait 5 years for it appear. It is being rolled out right now today. China just announced a nationwide roll-out and other nations are working hard at it. And, even here in the U.S. where we have blocked the technological leader and without government assistance, even we are rolling it out in major cities.
Apple needs to get its butt in gear.
Yes, I read all of Zulu's comments. I suggest you do the same. Aside from generally agreeing with your position, s/he only puts forth 2 'new' uses of 5G: real-time traffic information and coordination and better location identification. Beyond that s/he says "5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet." The traffic information use is about cars, not phones. Smartphones only factor in peripherally. The only real capability that 5G will add to this is the increased number of connections. Speed and latency isn't a factor. A car can't make adjustments in milliseconds and a driver most certainly can't. Beyond that, it requires a critical mass of properly equipped cars and the automotive industry moves about an order of magnitude slower than the smartphone industry. Even if every new car sold today suddenly had the technology to create such a system it would be 3-5 years minimum before it was useful. That's assuming the standards and protocols for inter-car communications have been agreed upon... oops. There goes another 5 years.
Yes, 5G is being rolled out today. Verizon has coverage in 11 cities and AT&T has coverage in 21 cities!!! (well, make that some coverage in those cities - Minneapolis is included and we have about 8 square blocks of coverage.) China's roll out just began this fall as well. I remember a year ago everyone was going through contortions about Apple not having a 5G phone yet because '5G is coming in 2019! We're going to miss the boat!' well, here we are at the end of 2019 and the 5G coverage is minimal at best. I just checked Verizon's web site - there are a whopping 4 smartphones that have 5G capability.
I get that you're excited about the technology, but don't let your excitement get in the way of any rational thought over what it will actually do and how soon that will happen. In all of the reading I've done, no one has proposed any actual smartphone uses for 5G. Even you admit it's about enabling new uses rather than improving current uses. Like I said above - 5G will come in due time but just like every other technological advancement in the past it will take time and the way it evolves will be far different from what anyone thinks right now. There are bigger things to stress about than whether your phone has 5G
No, I am have not been "excited about technology" for 30 some years. Technology is a tool. Like a hammer. You can argue that we don't need jack-hammers because we already have sledge hammers. But you would be wrong. 5G is a better tool. A tool that will change what we do and how we do it.
All of your arguments boil down to: "It's not 100% ready today". That is not an argument.
No matter how much Apple drags its feet, nor how much you protest, 5G is coming. And it will change how things are done.. Apple can stay with and ahead of technology -- or not. The technology is available to them. But, so far, they choose to be laggards rather than leaders. So sad for a major American company to fall behind like that.
Applezulu and Avon have provided a number of detailed uses for 5G, you should go back and read them.
And I didn't say that iPhones needed to show the carriers the way. Like any communications technology, it takes both transmitters and receivers to make it work. If Apple continues to drag their feet they are no only falling behind other smart phone vendors but holding up 5G technology for the rest of us. Since they have access to the technology, that is both wrong and stupid.
And, we don't have wait 5 years for it appear. It is being rolled out right now today. China just announced a nationwide roll-out and other nations are working hard at it. And, even here in the U.S. where we have blocked the technological leader and without government assistance, even we are rolling it out in major cities.
Apple needs to get its butt in gear.
Yes, I read all of Zulu's comments. I suggest you do the same. Aside from generally agreeing with your position, s/he only puts forth 2 'new' uses of 5G: real-time traffic information and coordination and better location identification. Beyond that s/he says "5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet." The traffic information use is about cars, not phones. Smartphones only factor in peripherally. The only real capability that 5G will add to this is the increased number of connections. Speed and latency isn't a factor. A car can't make adjustments in milliseconds and a driver most certainly can't. Beyond that, it requires a critical mass of properly equipped cars and the automotive industry moves about an order of magnitude slower than the smartphone industry. Even if every new car sold today suddenly had the technology to create such a system it would be 3-5 years minimum before it was useful. That's assuming the standards and protocols for inter-car communications have been agreed upon... oops. There goes another 5 years.
Yes, 5G is being rolled out today. Verizon has coverage in 11 cities and AT&T has coverage in 21 cities!!! (well, make that some coverage in those cities - Minneapolis is included and we have about 8 square blocks of coverage.) China's roll out just began this fall as well. I remember a year ago everyone was going through contortions about Apple not having a 5G phone yet because '5G is coming in 2019! We're going to miss the boat!' well, here we are at the end of 2019 and the 5G coverage is minimal at best. I just checked Verizon's web site - there are a whopping 4 smartphones that have 5G capability.
I get that you're excited about the technology, but don't let your excitement get in the way of any rational thought over what it will actually do and how soon that will happen. In all of the reading I've done, no one has proposed any actual smartphone uses for 5G. Even you admit it's about enabling new uses rather than improving current uses. Like I said above - 5G will come in due time but just like every other technological advancement in the past it will take time and the way it evolves will be far different from what anyone thinks right now. There are bigger things to stress about than whether your phone has 5G
No, I am have not been "excited about technology" for 30 some years. Technology is a tool. Like a hammer. You can argue that we don't need jack-hammers because we already have sledge hammers. But you would be wrong. 5G is a better tool. A tool that will change what we do and how we do it.
All of your arguments boil down to: "It's not 100% ready today". That is not an argument.
No matter how much Apple drags its feet, nor how much you protest, 5G is coming. And it will change how things are done.. Apple can stay with and ahead of technology -- or not. The technology is available to them. But, so far, they choose to be laggards rather than leaders. So sad for a major American company to fall behind like that.
Funny how you always resort to straw man arguments and quoting people on things they never said when you don't have any way to back your position. Go back and read my posts. If you have an argument, get back to me. If all you can do is make up points, then there's no point in having a discussion.
Applezulu and Avon have provided a number of detailed uses for 5G, you should go back and read them.
And I didn't say that iPhones needed to show the carriers the way. Like any communications technology, it takes both transmitters and receivers to make it work. If Apple continues to drag their feet they are no only falling behind other smart phone vendors but holding up 5G technology for the rest of us. Since they have access to the technology, that is both wrong and stupid.
And, we don't have wait 5 years for it appear. It is being rolled out right now today. China just announced a nationwide roll-out and other nations are working hard at it. And, even here in the U.S. where we have blocked the technological leader and without government assistance, even we are rolling it out in major cities.
Apple needs to get its butt in gear.
Yes, I read all of Zulu's comments. I suggest you do the same. Aside from generally agreeing with your position, s/he only puts forth 2 'new' uses of 5G: real-time traffic information and coordination and better location identification. Beyond that s/he says "5G is going to be about the things that haven't been invented yet." The traffic information use is about cars, not phones. Smartphones only factor in peripherally. The only real capability that 5G will add to this is the increased number of connections. Speed and latency isn't a factor. A car can't make adjustments in milliseconds and a driver most certainly can't. Beyond that, it requires a critical mass of properly equipped cars and the automotive industry moves about an order of magnitude slower than the smartphone industry. Even if every new car sold today suddenly had the technology to create such a system it would be 3-5 years minimum before it was useful. That's assuming the standards and protocols for inter-car communications have been agreed upon... oops. There goes another 5 years.
Yes, 5G is being rolled out today. Verizon has coverage in 11 cities and AT&T has coverage in 21 cities!!! (well, make that some coverage in those cities - Minneapolis is included and we have about 8 square blocks of coverage.) China's roll out just began this fall as well. I remember a year ago everyone was going through contortions about Apple not having a 5G phone yet because '5G is coming in 2019! We're going to miss the boat!' well, here we are at the end of 2019 and the 5G coverage is minimal at best. I just checked Verizon's web site - there are a whopping 4 smartphones that have 5G capability.
I get that you're excited about the technology, but don't let your excitement get in the way of any rational thought over what it will actually do and how soon that will happen. In all of the reading I've done, no one has proposed any actual smartphone uses for 5G. Even you admit it's about enabling new uses rather than improving current uses. Like I said above - 5G will come in due time but just like every other technological advancement in the past it will take time and the way it evolves will be far different from what anyone thinks right now. There are bigger things to stress about than whether your phone has 5G
No, I am have not been "excited about technology" for 30 some years. Technology is a tool. Like a hammer. You can argue that we don't need jack-hammers because we already have sledge hammers. But you would be wrong. 5G is a better tool. A tool that will change what we do and how we do it.
All of your arguments boil down to: "It's not 100% ready today". That is not an argument.
No matter how much Apple drags its feet, nor how much you protest, 5G is coming. And it will change how things are done.. Apple can stay with and ahead of technology -- or not. The technology is available to them. But, so far, they choose to be laggards rather than leaders. So sad for a major American company to fall behind like that.
Funny how you always resort to straw man arguments and quoting people on things they never said when you don't have any way to back your position. Go back and read my posts. If you have an argument, get back to me. If all you can do is make up points, then there's no point in having a discussion.
My point was that it is you ignoring valid points that is the problem.
Comments
Futurism is all well and good, but castigating people for not getting behind vague notions of possible usefullness doesn't seem like the best way to advocate.
Arguing that data connections for mobile devices are as good as they’ll ever need to be is laughably nonsensical. Every single time in computing when more speed and capacity are offered, people find new ways to use all of it and then look for more. Every single time.
There are good reasons to wait for 5G. The market penetration is in early adopter phase, the hardware hasn’t matured. This results in poor products. They can wait. You guys think there is a market changing feature that 5G will provide. We, well I, haven’t seen what that is and don’t agree with people who suggested such and such feature as being big.
Again, it’s not that we don’t want 5G. The question is what is the rush? Unfortunately, none of the answers so far are what I really want.
I was rather nonplussed by your traffic control idea as it was mostly an incremental improvement over existing navigation features (with a pretty long ramp up to get enough users to use navigation while driving), wasn’t sure if it would be an actual improvement over existing navigation capabilities, and wouldn’t upgrade to a 5G smartphone for it. I don’t think it would get people to upgrade. The only thing getting people to upgrade these days is a broken phone.
Fiber service has been available for about a decade or so. That’s a 10x increase in bandwidth, probably 100x for uploads, The rollout has been really really slow. If it provided enough value, there would be a lot of fiber going into people’s homes than there are today. It didn’t convince people to buy PCs faster either. Google’s bet on it has not been gangbusters.
I’m not anti-technology or anti-5G here. There just isn’t a need to race to be first or even second with this.
And the only thing "not mature" about 5G is the U.S. It is taking a pretty childish stance towards it -- blocking the most advanced products from its market.
Any phone purchased today will be bordering on obsolete in 5 years. I've you are that concerned about 5G right now, you won't be happy with a 5 year old phone. Look at the history of every other mobile transition - how long have the rollouts taken? Then how long has it taken for the technology to become truly necessary? The amount of utterly blind and irrational optimism here is astounding. 5G is in its infancy and by everyone's admission has no current practical use (beyond increasing download speeds.) Now you think that with 5 years uses which you can't even think of will not only come to light but become fully developed and ubiquitous enough that anyone without 5G will be a technological cripple. Wow. Just wow.
And again, today's iPhone will continue to work perfectly well long after 5G actually rolls out. You can throw your money on technological boondoggles. I'll spend my money on tech I can use.
And, we don't have wait 5 years for it appear. It is being rolled out right now today. China just announced a nationwide roll-out and other nations are working hard at it. And, even here in the U.S. where we have blocked the technological leader and without government assistance, even we are rolling it out in major cities.
Apple needs to get its butt in gear.
Yes, 5G is being rolled out today. Verizon has coverage in 11 cities and AT&T has coverage in 21 cities!!! (well, make that some coverage in those cities - Minneapolis is included and we have about 8 square blocks of coverage.) China's roll out just began this fall as well. I remember a year ago everyone was going through contortions about Apple not having a 5G phone yet because '5G is coming in 2019! We're going to miss the boat!' well, here we are at the end of 2019 and the 5G coverage is minimal at best. I just checked Verizon's web site - there are a whopping 4 smartphones that have 5G capability.
I get that you're excited about the technology, but don't let your excitement get in the way of any rational thought over what it will actually do and how soon that will happen. In all of the reading I've done, no one has proposed any actual smartphone uses for 5G. Even you admit it's about enabling new uses rather than improving current uses. Like I said above - 5G will come in due time but just like every other technological advancement in the past it will take time and the way it evolves will be far different from what anyone thinks right now. There are bigger things to stress about than whether your phone has 5G
1. 5.4”, 6.1” and 6.7” all OLED displays
2. iPhone 4/4S like industrial design
3. Time of flight camera sensors for AR, Face ID
4. 5G
5. Who knows what else
The new industrial design and display sizes are going to be huge as it represents the first real change in a long while, since the iPhone 6 models if you don’t consider the metal and glass sandwich industrial design in the iPhone 8 models and after a big change.
You also seem to be somewhat contradicting this gentleman:
You can argue that we don't need jack-hammers because we already have sledge hammers. But you would be wrong.
5G is a better tool. A tool that will change what we do and how we do it.
All of your arguments boil down to: "It's not 100% ready today". That is not an argument.
No matter how much Apple drags its feet, nor how much you protest, 5G is coming. And it will change how things are done.. Apple can stay with and ahead of technology -- or not. The technology is available to them. But, so far, they choose to be laggards rather than leaders. So sad for a major American company to fall behind like that.