Apple officially announces a delay in the launch of the 5G iPhone 12 series

After reporting a record-setting fiscal third quarter that blew away Wall Street's expectations, Apple had some bad news to announce. During the conference call that followed the earnings report, the company's Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said, "As you know, last year we started selling iPhones in late September. This year, we expect supply to be available a few weeks later."

The comment means that we could see the 5G 2020 iPhone 12 models launched in October or even as late as November. This is quite out of character for Apple which usually keeps everyone guessing about when it will start shipping its latest iPhone models until they are unveiled. But yesterday, when reporting its fiscal third-quarter earnings, chip designer Qualcomm said that 5G handset shipments would decline 15% in the current quarter because an unnamed customer was planning to delay a "global 5G flagship phone launch." It didn't take much detective work to figure out that the unnamed customer was Apple.

Ever since the coronavirus started to make its way around the world earlier this year, there was talk that Apple might have to delay the launch of the iPhone 12 series. The company's supply chain was running at less than full-speed, and the assembly lines at facilities run by Foxconn, its top manufacturing partner, were at 50% of capacity since supplies were scarce. As the first calendar quarter came to a close, Apple was able to reopen all of its retail stores in China just as they started to shut down in the U.S. and Foxconn hit its employee recruitment goals ahead of schedule.

In the past, Apple has had to release certain iPhone models after September. In 2017, the iPhone X wasn't launched until November 3rd that year. The following year, the iPhone XR wasn't released until October 26th, and last year was the first time since 2016 that all iPhone models were released in September.

We should see four new iPhones released this year including the 5.4-inch iPhone 12, the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Max, the 6.1-inch iPhone 12 Pro, and the 6.7-inch iPhone 12 Pro Max. All four models will be powered by the 5nm A14 Bionic chipset. The "Pro" units will feature 6GB of memory and storage options will start at 128GB. The premium variants will come with Wide, Ultra-wide, and Telephoto cameras along with the LiDAR depth sensor. First seen on the 2020 iPad Pro, the time-of-flight sensor will provide more accurate depth sensors for enhanced portraits and improved AR capabilities. We could see the "Pro" models steal another feature from the iPad Pro in the 120Hz ProMotion refresh rate. This gives users buttery smooth scrolling and enhanced animation for video games. At 120Hz, the display updates 120 times each second. However, there has been some speculation about whether the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max will indeed include the feature.

The 2020 iPhone 12 series will also have a different design. Apple is replacing the rounded sides seen on the device since 2014's iPhone 6 line with the flat sides that Apple first used with the iPhone 4 in 2010. Got your heart set on one of the 5G iPhone 12 series models? You might have to hold on a few extra weeks before you can buy one. And when you do and open the box, you might notice that Apple has decided not to include a charging brick with the phone. While the 2020 iPhones will support 20W fast charging, those who want to take advantage of the faster charging speed will need to purchase the 20W charger separately. In addition, Apple is also expected to leave the wired EarPods earphones out of the iPhone 12 series boxes in an attempt to drive demand for its wireless Bluetooth AirPods.