Daniel Howley for Yahoo Finance:
Apple launched its iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max on Tuesday. The smartphones feature a variety of improvements, including three all-new cameras on the 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max. But one element missing from the announcement was something carriers and governments around the world have been talking about for years: 5G.
Even if you currently have a 5G smartphone, the major U.S. carriers still don’t have their 5G networks built out. So you won’t be able to take advantage of those super-fast speeds. Instead you’ll likely end up using current 4G LTE networks. And it’s still unclear when 5G connections will be as ubiquitous as 4G LTE. Which means even without the high-speed connectivity of 5G, Apple’s iPhone 11 line might still be worth the upgrade for many users.
As of now, 5G is only available in an incredibly small number of cities across the U.S. And even in those cities, depending on the carrier you use, you may only be able to access a 5G connection in a very specific spot. Walk a block from a 5G node, and you’ll fall right back down to 4G LTE. Don’t forget, it took years to reach the level of 4G LTE saturation we have today, which means we’re still a long way off from 5G being as ubiquitous as 4G LTE currently is.
MacDailyNews Take: Exactly.
We’ll hear a lot of noise from the very vocal super-minority about how “Apple’s fallen behind” by not offering a radio that can communicate with a network that isn’t available to pretty much everyone yet, but that’s all it’ll be: meaningless noise that won’t affect regular people’s iPhone purchases. Late 2020 is the beginning of the 5G revolution, not 2019. — MacDailyNews, August 22, 2019