Don’t worry, it will go away in a future software update after tons of customers will want to replace their new iPhone 12s because they would claim it’s not getting 5G data speeds and it says 5G on the screen.
When I got iPhone 3G, my first 3G phone, there was “enable 3G” switch in settings. When turned on, the behaviour was, that 3G was shown up when there was 3G signal. Otherwise it showed E (edge). So my understanding of “smart data mode” is, that it’s showing up 5G because it’s pinging 5G band and connection is available, but it’s using LTE momentarily due to loosy 5G signal (slower than LTE, or not too much faster, but heavily battery draining). Otherwise, when finding no 5G signal, it would show 4G LTE even if the 5G connectivity is enabled permanently. This way I would consider it truly smart and useful.
I remember back in the day when my iPhone 7 was the latest handset it would always revert to 3G with every phone call and go back to 4G afterwards. I took it to the Genius Bar but they didn’t see it as a problem even though they could repeat the issue every time.
Maybe this reverting down to the slower bandwidth isn’t something new for iPhones - a 3G voice call is perfectly good quality on a 4G capable handset, so likewise a 4G voice call will be good enough on a 5G handset (I doubt you could even hear the difference in call quality). It would be nice if Apple would clarify how it works rather than the phones behaviour raising suspicions to the more tech savvy users and then rumours circulating on forums such as this one.
Absolutely. Lawyers are salivating as we speak. Another dumb move by Apple. Users need to actually experience the crapitude that is 5G. They need to experience their phones heating up and their batteries being sucked dry as they watch. Then they’ll finally know what 5G really is. Apple trying to mitigate the 5G disaster by playing games with “Smart Data Mode”. It should be off by default, not on by default. Users who think 5G is the end-all-be-all need to be smacked between the eyes with a solid oak 2X4 to get them to come to their senses. 5G will be a big smelly turd for at least two years or more.
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So my understanding of “smart data mode” is, that it’s showing up 5G because it’s pinging 5G band and connection is available, but it’s using LTE momentarily due to loosy 5G signal (slower than LTE, or not too much faster, but heavily battery draining). Otherwise, when finding no 5G signal, it would show 4G LTE even if the 5G connectivity is enabled permanently.
This way I would consider it truly smart and useful.
It would be nice if Apple would clarify how it works rather than the phones behaviour raising suspicions to the more tech savvy users and then rumours circulating on forums such as this one.