Apple is tempting me... - iPhone 12 & 12 Pro Unboxing
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2021-05-05
·
2,728 words · ~13 min read
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- Remember when you evaluated a phone based on how smooth it was when you were swiping
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from one page to the next? - [Jono] Yeah.
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Which iPhone is that? 4? - The iPhone 4. This was my daily driver for almost three years.
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- [Jono] Oh, me too! (laughs) - It's a good phone.
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And that is why I'm so excited to check out the iPhone 12.
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I mean, we haven't seen an update to Apple's design for the iPhone since the iPhone X.
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And before that, it had been, I don't know, about 17 years since they had updated the design
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that they originally introduced with the 6.
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So here in front of me, I have the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro.
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Unfortunately, we don't have the Pro Max or the mini yet,
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but surely, we will get our hands on them in due time.
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Oh, right! Interesting.
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The new Sticker Bomb skin from the one and only dbrand
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that is a limited time drop, ha-ha-ha-ha-ha,
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that you can check out at the link in the video description. Now, what excited me when I watched the Keynote
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for the iPhone 12 was this return to kind of a more squared off shape.
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I've always liked it, and maybe part of it is just nostalgia.
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A lot of people around here assume that I'm some kind of Apple hater,
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I hate iPhones or something like that, but the truth is I actually daily drove this iPhone 4
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for almost three years. And I've been through everything with it;
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I replaced the battery at one point, I had to replace the broken home button at one point,
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like I really wanted to keep this thing going. I absolutely loved it.
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And part of what I loved about it was the industrial solid feel of the aluminum frame
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with the glass sandwich, front and back. It's a design that I still think stands out today.
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And so seeing Apple make a return to this squared off design was something
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that was kind of exciting to me, even as someone who doesn't normally geek out over like,
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"Yeah, like the design, the lines, the phone, you know."
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Honestly though, feeling it in my hand, I can't say that I like it as much as I was expecting to.
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Part of what worked so well about the iPhone 4 was its size,
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like it was very, very holdable.
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Remember when the lock button was on the top? Ha-ha, I remember that.
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Honestly, this, I find a little bit harder to hold onto,
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like it either alternately digs into my palm
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or kind of slips out of it. To be clear, there is a sticker on it,
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a fancy sticker, but a sticker nonetheless. But I'm just finding it a little bit, I don't know, sharp,
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in a way that I didn't find the iPhone 4. - [Andy] Maybe if you have a case.
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- I don't know, I'm more of a naked guy. You know, I'm a naked boy.
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At most, a fancy sticker. I don't really like a bulky thing around my phone.
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- [Andy] Speaking of naked, LTTstore.com.
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- Don't be naked. Go to LTT Store.com. (everyone laughs)
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Swipe around a little bit here. Okay, I got my news, things that can be paywalled,
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so I can subscribe to Apple news for $14
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or whatever it costs. Thanks for that. This is cool. Got my App Library.
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So this is Apple holding the hands of all the people
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that don't know how to make folders. My wife would benefit from this.
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For whatever reason, you still can't just put an icon wherever you want.
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Ugh! But yeah, I tend to just make folders and then anytime I don't need folders,
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Spotlight is so amazing. If you've been living under a rock,
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the main benefits of the iPhone 12 lineup are as follows,
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and surprisingly, this is really cool.
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Most of them apply to both the 12 and the 12 Pro,
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which impressed the heck out of me 'cause Apple's been known to do things like,
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"Oh, well, you know, well, you don't need a OLED display,"
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or whatever the case may be. So we've got higher resolution displays,
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they're now calling it Super Retina. Apple has finally given into the pixels-per-inch war
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but in a way that I still think is reasonably sensible as long as it's not costing us anything in battery.
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More on that later. They've got support for 5G across the entire new lineup.
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As long as that doesn't affect battery too much, that should be okay. although word on the street is that it has.
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and we're gonna have to wait for the upcoming iPhone 13 lineup
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to get a more efficient 5G modem. We've got the A14 Bionic SOC, which to my knowledge,
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is the first commercially shipping five-nanometer processor.
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So it's got an enhanced neural engine as well as a new image signal processor
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which should make the cameras on these better than ever even though they're 12 megapixels across the board,
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even on the iPhone 12 Pro. So you've got your telephoto 12 megapixel,
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your regular 12-megapixel, and your super-wide 12 megapixel.
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And then finally, honestly, as crazy as this sounds,
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I don't really care that much about a new super advanced SOC these days.
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I mean, I am still daily driving a Note9
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and finding it to be fast enough for my use. The thing that's blowing me away here is the glass.
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On both of these phones, Apple is using a new Ceramic Shield glass technology
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that infuses the glass with ceramic
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that apparently makes them more shatterproof, just across the board stronger than anything
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that we've ever seen before by an order of several times.
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I mean, is this the end of shattered iPhone screens?
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According to some preliminary testing that I've seen, these puppies are surviving six-foot drops
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and just shrugging them off. I mean, bad news for the third-party repair industry
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along with all the other things about the iPhone 12 lineup that are difficult to repair,
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but good news for anyone who doesn't like replacing their phone screens all the time.
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One other big I-can't-believe-you-didn't-hold-out-on-me feature
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is the ability of both phones, the Pro and the regular,
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to not only playback HDR content at up to 1200 nits peak brightness,
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but also record HDR content. Now both of them will do up to 4K 60 FPS,
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but the only difference between them is that the Pro will do HDR recording
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at up to 60 frames per second. So I'm actually using the regular one right now
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to just try it out. Let's record an HDR clip here.
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Whoa! Hey, hold on. Whoa. You could see it just like right there,
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switched over into HDR mode. That is mind blowing.
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That is absolutely incredible. I don't know how much of this you guys are gonna be able to see
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through my camera on your screen, but this is not an ideal scenario for recording video
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on phones when I'm unboxing them or whatever. There's studio lights shining in my face
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and a lot of really deep shadows out there in the warehouse.
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I have never seen anything pick up even close
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to this kind of detail in here. Look how smooth that is too.
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Holy schnikes, dude. This is crazy.
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Wow. This becomes one of those can-I-wait features, you know?
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'Cause that's the question Android users find themselves asking a lot of the time is,
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well, iPhone users too for that matter is, "Is this worth switching for?
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Can I wait to have this?" Android phone makers are gonna come out
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with good HDR video recording eventually, but can I wait?
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Damn! Sorry, I swear I will stop. Like holy (bleep).
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This right here. No, hold on. This diffusion cloth looks so close
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to what it looks like in real life here.
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I'm blown away. Obviously, when you have a really strong light source,
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it'll clip, so you can see my main light here,
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but my fill light, that looks like the wrinkles in the cloth.
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Here, let's just... Okay, let's pull out a mortal video recorder here.
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So there's Andy looking all fly.
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Let's pan over here. Oh, looks like garbage.
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Okay, check this out. See how the entire scene dims
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as I point towards these lights? And how dark that looks, it doesn't look like that.
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But on the iPhone 12, look at that consistency.
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Even as we pan across these bright...
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Like what? Look at that dynamic range!
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It captures the whole thing. Isn't that nuts?
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- [Man] It's crazy. (laughs)
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- [Andy] We should all switch to iPhone. - Oh!
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Okay. Sorry, I will move on now. I will move on now.
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The notch is still here. Notch is apparently not going away anytime soon
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in spite of the fact that we got a global pandemic and without some weird, hacky workarounds
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where you hold the mask on half of your face
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while you set up Face ID and then an alternate look,
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and you do the other half of your face or something like that, really,
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Face ID does not work at all with a mask, and Apple has come out and said,
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"Well, it's not intended to be used with a mask. You can just use a pin." In spite of that, we're stuck with Face ID.
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We're stuck with a frickin' forehead notch in the front of the phone.
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I'm not a big fan of that. We're stuck with 60 Hertz displays.
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Right, I didn't even realize until I was like... Who doesn't use their phone as a fidget toy?
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Until I was fidgeting, swiping between home screens. I was like, "Oh yeah, that looks like garbage".
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(laughs) I mean, it really does. 90 Hertz, even 80, 75.
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75 Hertz would have been a big difference. That's all you had to do to make me at least happier, Apple.
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But I also understand why they didn't. Word on the street is that, and I haven't tried it yet,
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but word on the street is that battery life on the iPhone 12 lineup ain't great,
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and a big part of it is due to the 5G modem.
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So if Apple had gone and gone, "Okay, we're gonna add 5G, we're gonna add a higher resolution display,
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we're gonna throw a high refresh rate display in there,"
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they would have had endless complaints about battery life unless they sucked it up
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and put a big battery in the iPhone, which I don't think they're ever going to do.
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One thing they did do though is throw a ton of RAM in these puppies.
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So there's a really good test over on EverythingApplePro
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where he shows that basically, with 6 gigs of RAM,
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that slow task switching that has plagued iPhone users
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when you have a lot of apps open in the background is pretty much resolved.
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And that's the kind of thing that I also, like the battery thing, was sure that Apple was never going to address
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because it dramatically increases the cost of every single unit they sell.
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Whereas software optimization is something that only increases the cost of writing the software;
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the handsets themselves can remain cheap. So you've got the fastest SOC, you've got a ton of RAM,
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you've got a beautiful display even if it only runs at 60 Hertz
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and they actually didn't raise prices for a change.
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What do you think, Andy? iPhone 12, 12 Pro, winners?
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- [Andy] Look at my T-shirt. - Oh my God, he's wearing an Apple logo.
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(staff laughs) You're buying one, aren't you?
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- [Andy] I bought one for my wife. - "I bought one for my wife." - Yeah. - All right.
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- Not for myself. - You're gonna test drive it for her though, right? - Yeah. - Yeah, that makes sense.
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Which one should I daily drive, the Pro or the regular? - [Jono] Pro. - Just go Pro?
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I mean, the difference is so small. You got stainless steel frame on the Pro,
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aluminum frame on the non-Pro, like, hmm, okay.
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It's a little bit heavier. You got the extra camera which honestly,
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I probably won't use much, ugh. They both have wireless charging.
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Obviously, I think Apple is trying to phase us out of the whole plugging things into your phone thing,
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one connector at a time here. MagSafe charging, so let's go ahead
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and try out the MagSafe charger. Personally, I'm not expecting to be...
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What the hell? What is this packaging? Oh, very funny, dbrand. (laughs)
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Okay, there, that's an example of the Linus face drop that you can find link down below.
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Personally, I'm not expecting to be very compelled by MagSafe charging, but who knows?
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Maybe I'll be surprised. Personally, I got one of those multi-device things
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that Apple never manage to release. I'm a little bummed that this isn't detachable
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'cause that means when this wears out, and you can tell just looking at it that it's gonna wear out, it's gonna be a bit of a drag.
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Which way does it go? Oh, there you go. Yeah, okay, so what's the key benefit of this
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compared to just a regular wireless charging pad?
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I guess just that it aligns properly in place. Okay, I mean, that's cool.
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Oh yeah, we could try the LiDAR thing. What did I say that app was called? Canvas!
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How many things are called Canvas?
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There we go, Canvas: Pocket 3D Room Scanner. Confirm the side button.
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Oh, got the camera right there. - [Man] Keep it up, Linus.
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- [Linus] You sound like my wife. - Hold it up. - I'm working on it.
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"Preparing to process your scan," this is where your A14 Bionic is gonna come in handy.
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Oh, dang! That's cool.
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Now there's a lot of obstructions 'cause this is a film set, but check out the enhanced scan.
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- [Both] Whoa! - [Linus] Neat!
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Go away, I'm trying to... (clicks tongue) I'm trying to look at things.
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Okay, I don't... Don't show this info anymore. Go away.
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Stop! I just wanna look at it. (staff laughs)
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Don't show this info anymore. Okay, there, if I click it, then will it go away?
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Okay. Oh, no. Here we go.
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- [Jono] I mean, it's kinda like a panorama. - No, it's not 'cause it has depth to it.
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See? - Oh, that's true. - Now there's a lot of like...
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It's doing a lot of guessing, obviously. You'd need multiple scans to get a really proper room scan,
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but that's still really cool. Yeah, it really doesn't like this plant.
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Ooh. That's all I really have to share about the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro for now.
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I'm gonna do a full review, I'm gonna daily drive it. I guess we'll do the Pro then?
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- Yeah. - We'll do the Pro and you'll have to find that over on Linus Tech Tips.
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I might never use the Lightning port again,
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and that's Apple's plan, isn't it?