Pre-orders for the device started a few weeks back and if you were one of the lucky sods that managed to get in on that first wave rush you can expect it to be delivered by just before Christmas depending on who you ordered from. We know that if you went through the iStore you’ll get it by 24 December, although to hit that date you might need to act fast. The iStore is taking orders up to 21 December which will then be delivered by the 24th. If you miss that window, you’ll have to a wait a bit.

iPhone 12 arrives exactly when it means to

If you’re looking at upgrading then you should probably know how much it’ll cost you. We’ve covered how much the iPhone 12 will cost you through Telkom and Vodacom but the iStore offers maybe the best deal with its trade-in policy. If you trade in your old iPhone 11 Pro, you can get the iPhone 12 Pro for R13 500. If you want to keep your 11 (for some weird reason), then you’d need to pay R23 500.

The cheapest iPhone 12 you’ll find at the iStore will be the standard version with 64GB of storage for R19  000. If you want to check out the full list of prices across the standard 12, the 12 Pro, 12 Mini and 12 Pro Max you can head on over to the iStore to get a solid list of prices.

We’ve been very excited for the iPhone 12 as it seems like one of Apple’s bigger technological leaps in recent memory. Apple’s proprietary A14 processor chip is reportedly the faster, most powerful smartphone chipset in existence. The phones will also come with 5G support, ceramic shield protection, OLED screen and a range of impressive cameras. Sign us up!

If you want a comprehensive guide on what to buy, we got you covered! Here’s what you need to know to decide which iPhone 12 is right for you.

The post The iPhone 12 is available in South Africa today appeared first on Stuff South Africa.

One of the terrible responsibilities that come with owning our own little pocket computers/trackers is the maintenance cost. If you’re set with decent enough insurance on your smartphone, this shouldn’t be an issue. But come the day that you accidentally drop it and it falls at a weird angle, you’re thousands of rands poorer just to fix that brilliant slab of glass up front. 

Don’t drop that iPhone 12

For the iPhone 12 Pro, you’ll pay roughly the same as a new iPhone 11 Pro display costs at the moment. It is priced at $279 for our foreign friends, but in rands that’ll be upwards of R4,500. At eye-value, it’s priced fairly decently, seeing that the previous iPhone models don’t sport the ceramic coating punted by Apple this time around. 

But repairing the base iPhone 12 is more expensive than the current base iPhone 11, and it’ll cost the same as the iPhone 12 Pro as referenced above. Add the strange (and wild) increase of repairing “other damage” to $449 (upwards of R7,500) and you’re in for a crappy treat once your new iPhone breaks. 

We reckon the large price increase for the base iPhone’s display repair is the fact that, this time, you’re rocking an OLED and not an LCD. We’re pretty sure it’ll be worth it, and maybe these numbers will put you off handling your new piece of tech all willy-nilly. Look after your expensive stuff, is what we’re actually saying. 

Obviously, we’ll need confirmation from iStore South Africa for pricing on this once the devices land in the country. We’re also still waiting for pricing on the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro. The other two, the iPhone 12 Mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max also haven’t been priced locally yet.

Source: The Verge

The post Fixing the iPhone 12’s Ceramic Shield display: How much it’ll cost appeared first on Stuff South Africa.

Better on the big screen

Apple’s iPhone 12 Pro Max is going big. Very big. It’s packing Apple’s Super Retina XDR OLED display, with an oddball 1,242 x 2,688 resolution that’s sure to sear the eyes from your head. It’s got peak brightness of 1200 nits. It’ll use Apple’s new Ceramic Shield tech for strength because apparently the company’s too good for Corning’s Gorilla Glass now, and the display also runs at 120Hz. Because Apple’s gone all-in on gaming.

The iPhone 12 Pro is a little smaller, coming in at 6.1in but it also has a 120Hz Super Retina XDR OLED display and Ceramic Shield. Because gaming, and all those other lovely things, yeah?

Apple bets big on the A14 Bionic

Apple’s also (and obviously) packing the Pro and Pro Max with its A14 Bionic hexacore processor, with its GPU improvements, neural engine upgrades (it’s gone from eight to sixteen cores) and then a new image signal processor that… well, we’ll get to that in just a second.

Apple’s claiming a heavy speed boost across the board, from straight-up processing to graphics performance. Apple’s machine learning bits are all also supposed to operate in real-time or near real-time. And they kinda needed to, because both Pro phone’s cameras have got some seriously crazy skills.

Mobile photography just got a smack upside the head

Look, Huawei and Samsung have been doing amazing things with smartphone cameras but Apple’s just come along and kicked them in their respective nuts. At least, that’s what Apple reckons. But they don’t tend to brag unless they can back it up and… they probably can. We still wanna test it, but they probably can.

The iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max both have three 12MP sensors, in addition to something new for the Pro Max — a LiDAR depth sensor. And this is all going to take a little explaining so bear with us.

The 12 Pro has three camera sensors — all 12MP, but with very different functions. One is a 52mm telephoto, another is a 26mm 7-element  wide-angle and there’s also a 13mm ultra-wide that benefits from Apple’s improved neural engine and low-light performance. It’ll support 4 x optical zoom as well. But it’s the 12 Pro Max that’ll really blow your head off if you’re a camera fan.

And that’s because its telephoto sensors is now 65mm, its 12MP wide-angle lens features a new type of optical image stabilisation (which moves the sensor around) and also captures 87% more light in crappy conditions. The 13mm ultra-wide is the same as that seen in its (slightly) smaller sibling but the Pro Max also gets a LiDAR scanner, which is used for depth of field. In the dark. Among other things.

The LiDAR scanner enables more accurate augmented reality, and also speeds up autofocus in darkness. Since it doesn’t actually need light, it focuses up to six times faster than last year’s Pro Max. The Pro Max sports 5x optical zoom, and it’s also got some serious video skills. Apple’s justifiably proud of this one — it’ll be the first handset to shoot video in Dolby Vision HDR, and it’s also set to be the first device that allows editing of the same format.

Speaking of formats, Apple’s also launching a new image format called Apple ProRAW — which it says takes the versatility of RAW images and adds in Apple’s pre- and post-processing magic as editable layers. Which… yeah, this is going to make mobile photographers very happy indeed. Provided it all works as advertised.

Coming (very) soon

The iPhone 12 Pro is going to be available for pre-order overseas from 16 October, launching on 23 October. The iPhone 12 Pro Max will become available for pre-order on 6 November, launching on 13 November. Whether they launch here in a similar timeframe isn’t known but we sure bloody hope so. And we hope the other thing Apple announced also gets here — the Pro handsets aren’t going up in price overseas. An iPhone 12 Pro at iPhone 11 Pro launch prices is still… expensive but it coulda been worse. Unless the exchange rate comes along and messes with us just before launch, of course.

The post Apple’s going bigger (and better) with the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max appeared first on Stuff South Africa.