The adoption of 5G, technically offered by all three major U.S. carriers, is irrelevant or unusable for most people and has only made smartphones larger, more power hungry, and thus more expensive. The reason the Galaxy S20 costs $250 more than its predecessor is also due to 5G. One must also be extra careful about where and how one purchases a 5G phone. This is because some devices are only available on certain networks.

So far, this is the compromise we must accept: 5G has made buying a cell phone today much more complicated, albeit with no direct benefit. Carriers and handset manufacturers have rather hopelessly tried to seduce us with the promise that one day we might be inspired to download the entire third season of "Schitt's Creek" in under a minute while standing on a downtown Minneapolis street corner . You will do it, grateful that you spent an extra $300 for the privilege and wondering if there was any other way to live.

Sure, Apple's iPhone 12 unveiling checked off some of the clichéd 5G buzzwords, citing "amazing possibilities" and a surprise guest appearance by Verizon's CEO. But thankfully, none of that mattered when the keynote ended and the price was finally announced.

At a time when almost every phone manufacturer is raising costs, Apple kept the price of its latest iPhone roughly the same as the current generation, which was already consistent with the generation before it. Especially since no matter which iPhone 12 you buy, you get the same 5G experience, i.e., the best 5G experience available today.

According to Apple, the iPhone 12 series supports the widest assortment of 5G bands of any phone on the market, and they also rightfully claim that the iPhone 12 mini in particular is "the lightest, smallest, thinnest 5G phone ever."

There are many 5G phones out there today, some even quite cheap. But the most affordable 5G phones have one thing in common. That is that they support only the low and medium frequency bands below 6 GHz, which is 5G's long-distance transmission. This style of 5G transmits the furthest and serves as the backbone for nationwide coverage like AT&T and T-Mobile. However, 5G in the sub-6GHz band can at best provide speeds only slightly faster than the latest LTE. And actual performance is, on average, much worse than that.

The iPhone 12 lineup supports that kind of 5G, but it also includes support for millimeter wave (mmWave) 5G. This is the type of 5G usually found only in the most expensive handsets. Millimeter wave offers truly astounding data speeds in excess of 2 Gbps. It is probably many times faster than your home Internet connection, but it is only available over short distances within line of sight of one of the many millimeter wave small cells scattered across a handful of U.S. cities.

Frankly, I don't think these 5G technologies are particularly useful to anyone yet. I would hazard a guess that they may be practical within a year, but even then it may be too soon. Personally, I don't think we've reached the tipping point yet where buying an LTE-only phone is foolish. But what I appreciate about Apple's approach is that iPhone 12 owners will not be forced to pay more now for the privilege of 5G than they might one day use.

On the surface, this appears to be true for Samsung's new Galaxy S20 FE and Google Pixel 5. However, there is a snag in both cases: the Galaxy S20 FE offers mmWave only on Verizon, and is sold unlocked or through other carriers only at 5G below 6GHz. The Pixel 5, on the other hand, rivals the iPhone 12's extensive 5G coverage area, but with a much more modest CPU, its overall performance is significantly poorer.

iPhone 12 owners also don't have to put up with an absurdly huge device that fits in their pocket in the name of faster theoretical data speeds. Wired reporter Brian Barrett hailed the launch of the iPhone 12 mini as "the triumphant return of a great small phone. It seems that most handset makers were so caught up in the dizzying one-winner game that they turned a deaf ear to the very reasonable demand for a phone that can be used with one hand.

That is not to say that the iPhone 12 mini is without concerns. We don't know exactly how big the battery built into that device is, but given the small footprint of the phone, we can't imagine it's big enough to spare. (According to leaked information, it has a capacity of about 2,200 mAh.) Also, iPhones tend to manage power better and can generally survive on smaller batteries than Android devices, but they still follow the laws of nature.

The iPhone SE lasted only 9 hours and 18 minutes, below average in our custom battery tests. I am curious to see how the iPhone 12 mini fares after taking those results into account. I am even a little concerned about the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro models, as Apple did not say a single reassuring word about battery life at the launch event, as in past years.

The answer will become clear in due time, and not in the bad way that it did when it eliminated the headphone jack four years ago; rather, Apple has shown over the past year that it is leading the industry. Rather, Apple has demonstrated in this year of economic hardship that it is possible to produce a state-of-the-art 5G phone without raising prices. [Because while some surveys suggest that the public really wants 5G, people's biggest concern is whether they can afford their next phone, according to a GlobalWebIndex survey conducted in March, "The likelihood that smartphone costs will rise (41%) is the biggest concern in the UK and U.S. consumers who are aware of 5G, the most frequently cited concern about 5G."

There is also the issue of misinformation. A separate survey conducted by phone reseller Decluttr found that one in three iPhone owners already believe their device is 5G-ready (the result of AT&T's misleading marketing of LTE Advanced speeds as 5G Evolution (likely the result of AT&T's misleading marketing of LTE Advanced speeds as 5G Evolution). Additionally, 16% said they either did not know or misunderstood that their iPhone supported 6G, which does not yet exist.

Whatever innovations 5G brings, the technology cannot grow at a rapid pace if the phones that benefit from it are too expensive or if the 5G concept is so esoteric that users are not even sure if they already have 5G.

Of course, 5G did not become important to the majority of people until it was included in the iPhone. In order for this generational shift to reach critical mass, it inevitably needed Cupertino's endorsement. But the iPhone 12 will help the industry get there faster. Because Apple has paid closer attention to accessibility and affordability than its rivals bothered to.