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Apple fiends still line up for iPhone launches. Good for them Apple Begins Selling New iPhone 11 In Berlin A line of people waiting for the iPhone 11 to go on sale in Berlin, Germany.

Carsten koall/Getty Images It's a little embarrassing, actually. In my late teens and early 20s, I was Militant Anti Apple Guy. You know the type. Calls Mac users sheep, mocks people when they say they own an iPhone. I'm not proud of it, but I was that guy.

"Your new iPhone 5 only has a 4-inch screen," I scoffed at my friend Taylor one Friday in 2012. "My HTC's screen is almost an inch bigger, and it's six months old. And Androids give you so much more customization choice."

Taylor was Enthusiastic Apple Guy. Owned a MacBook Pro, an iPad and an iPhone, had never used a Windows PC or Android. You know the type. He and I would have it out every Friday. We'd go to the pub with friends and eventually a contentious Apple-related comment would be made. Our friends would groan, talk among themselves and let us have our spat.

"Why would you want a choice between bad apps when you can just use Apple's default good apps?" he would reply. "And you have to concede iPhone cameras are the best."

"Taylor," I would say, looking deep in his eyes, "I concede nothing."

And on and on.

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I was reminded of these arguments Friday when I covered the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro retail launch in Sydney. When I arrived at around 8 a.m., there were around 100 people in line. In New York, around 600 people queued up near Apple's flagship Fifth Avenue store. Yep, people still do queue for hours, sometimes days, to get a phone they could just as easily order online. I got the chance to talk to a few such people.

One waited in line for five hours, from 3 a.m., during which he was accosted by drunk people who'd been out soaking in the Thursday Night Fever. Another person I spoke to regaled me with his 11-day campout to get the iPhone 8 back in 2017. Over in New York, not only had the first person in line been there since 6 p.m. the night before, he flew in from Las Vegas for the honor.

For hardcore Apple fans, queuing for hours (or days) has been a staple of every iPhone launch since 2007. Hundreds of people lined up in New York, London and a few other major cities for the very first iPhone. Before long, it became a worldwide phenomenon. September meant new iPhone, and new iPhone meant crowds outside Apple Stores.

"It's an environment you don't see with any other phone launch," one person told me on Friday. If you're committed to Apple, you see this statement as proof of the company's brilliance. If you're against Apple, you see it as proof of the company's brainwash marketing. But either way, it's true.

This fact isn't taken well by many. I tweeted a video of Apple Store employees applauding in celebration as Sydney's first iPhone 11 owner walked outside the Store. This led to the somewhat unpleasant experience of going viral. I got about 2,500 replies to that tweet, a tidal wave of digital resentment. A lot of replies derided the cultish applause given by the Apple Store employees. Some made banal critiques of capitalism, the irony of tweeting such a thing from a smartphone eluding them. Many tweeters, though, mocked the new iPhone owner himself.

Which seems unfair.

Key to comprehending the aberrant behavior of these queuers is understanding they know they don't need to be there. Being tech enthusiasts, we can safely assume they are aware of online shopping's existence. Most people line up for tradition, having done so since the early iPhone years, for ritual or just for the experience.

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Is it unnecessary and weird? A little, but whatever. People do unnecessary and weird things all the time if they're sufficiently impassioned. I don't care about cars, so spending $100,000 on one seems unnecessary and weird to me. I like video games but hate dressing up, so cosplay seems like an exhausting way to spend time. But people love all that stuff. Good for them.

I kind of envy the people who line up at ungodly hours for a new iPhone. People mock them for caring so much about a phone, but I don't think I care about anything enough to wake up at 3 in the morning.

Which is what reminded me of Taylor. I miss arguing about phones. Nowadays screen sizes are similar, camera technology has advanced and third-party apps like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter dominate our time, so you make fewer tradeoffs than ever when comparing an iPhone 11 Pro to, say, a Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus. This is especially true when comparing an iPhone to a Pixel device, which runs pure Android. Unencumbered by a third-party user interface like Samsung's OneUI or (God forbid) Huawei's EMUI, pure Android is the only operating system that can compete with the slickness of iOS.

One phone might have a slightly better camera, the other a slightly longer-lasting battery. You end up with a great device either way, so there's not much to squabble about. To me, the question now isn't Android vs. Apple, it's $499 phone vs. $999 phone. But that's a whole other can of worms.

I mainly miss arguing about phones because of how wholesome it was. Taylor and me would have drinks and yell loudly at each other, but it's difficult to have hurt feelings over an iPhone vs. Android argument.

I don't argue much nowadays, but when I do it's probably about something inherently invidious. Politics, racism, sexism or something similarly likely to cause acrimony. Even typing those words is enough to make me anxious. Can't we just love one another?

Which is my message to people ragging on the Cult of Apple. Let them line up. Let them get super excited about a new iPhone -- even if new phones, regardless of brand, are now more iterations than overhauls. They care about something that's not actively hurting someone else, which feels like a rare descriptor in 2019.

As for Taylor and me, we both won the argument. The last phone I bought was an iPhone. It was a good decision. Earlier this year he smashed his iPhone X, and I recommended he try the inexpensive Pixel 3A. He says it was a good decision. Ah, how the wheel turns.

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02 Huge leak says next year’s iPhone 12 will feature Apple’s most massive design overhaul in a decade While the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro feature substantial upgrades in terms of specifications and battery life, the design of the phones is virtually unchanged from that of the iPhone X and iPhone XS. Just as it did with the iPhone 6, Apple has focused on internal upgrades rather than external ones over the past three years, but all signs are pointing to next year’s iPhone being the complete overhaul many Apple fans have been waiting for.

Adding fuel to the fire, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed in a research note (via MacRumors) that the 2020 iPhone will feature a “significantly” different design than what we see on the iPhone 11:

We predict that the new 2H20 iPhone design will change significantly […] The metal frame and the front and rear 2/2.5D glass are still used, but the metal frame surface will be changed to a similar design to the iPhone 4, replacing the current surface design.

This isn’t the first time that Kuo has suggested Apple would refresh the iPhone design in 2020. In another note earlier this year, he predicted that the three new 2020 iPhone models would feature 6.1inch, 5.4-inch, and 6.7-inch displays, respectively. But this is the first time that he has gone into detail about the actual design of the phone itself, and if he’s right, the iPhone 12 could be the most consequential iPhone in a decade.

As MacRumors notes, the iPhone 4 was the first smartphone to feature an exposed aluminum frame connected to two panes of glass. It proved to be incredibly popular, and was subsequently copied by countless other smartphone vendors. A few years later, with the launch of the iPhone 6, Apple moved on to rounded edges.

But the 2010 design is apparently making a comeback, as Kuo believes that the iPhone 12 will have a new metal frame with “a more complex segmentation design, new trenching and injection molding procedures, and sapphire or glass cover assembly to protect the trench injection molding structure.”

Between the updated design and support for 5G on the iPhone 12, Kuo estimates that Apple’s smartphone shipments will jump to 85 million units in 2020, compared to 75 million shipments in 2019.

03 New iPhone Leaks Reveals Advanced All New iPhone For all the talk of a slightly faster processor and a bit more battery life in the iPhone 11, the 2020 iPhone is marked out as the iPhone which brings new technology to Apple’s iOS platform. And to mark the new beginning, Apple is set to welcome the next generation of iPhone design.

The Apple logo is seen on the window at an Apple Store on January 7, 2019 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Getty The recently launched iPhone 11 family are building on the three year old design that debuted with the iPhone X in 2017. This design replaced the curved edge look used from the iPhone 6 through to the iPhone 8.. In effect Apple will roll back the iPhone design to the generation of the iPhone 5S from 2013 (which debuted in 2010 on the iPhone 4). Tim Hardwick notes the findings of analyst Ming-Chi Kuo on the leaked design:

"We predict that the new 2H20 iPhone design will change significantly [...] The metal frame and the front and rear 2/2.5D glass are still used, but the metal frame surface will be changed to a similar design to the iPhone 4, replacing the current surface design.

Assuming Taniyama-Shimura, what advantages will return to a ‘boxy’ design offer?

The obvious benefit is in the various radio signals that need to be sent and received by any smartphone.

The new frame and design should provide ample space or the antenna required. The 2020 iPhone will of course be Apple’s first 5G smartphone, requiring new antenna to utilise the faster connection speeds offered by 5G, which I suspect is at the heart of the need for a redesign.

That the process has ended up with a similar solution to an older iPhone design suggests that the design goals in 2010 are still valid, and perhaps fashion rather than function drove the iPhone X team. Just remember that a return to the boxy design in 2020 means you’ll need to hold the iPhone in the prescribed manner.

Secondly, by staying with the current screen design (perhaps with a shallower depth) Apple will be reducing the bill of materials cost for the screen. The dollar savings may well be counterbalanced by the production costs of the new frame, but relying on older screen technology and sidestepping the move to curved screens (around 45 degrees of an angle) and waterfall screens (up to 90 degrees of an angle on the curved edge) will prevent Apple from being beholden to one supplier.

I’m sure that Tim Cook and his logistics team will happily allow some competition here to drive the screen unit price down over the lifetime of the device.

Finally, the design may well look ‘inspired by’, but it will be a new design with new features and new technology (at least new to the iPhone platform). The new look will be a significant statement of this being a new iPhone, rather than an iteration on the iPhone X which Apple has had to polish for the iPhone XS and iPhone 11 families in 2018 and 2019.

Apple's Senior Vice President of Worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller speaks about retail price of the new iPhone 4s at the company’s headquarters October 4, 2011 (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Getty Apple’s current design is four years old, and entering its fifth year. The design before that lasted four years, and of course three years before that the iPhone was launched. While marketing has driven the ‘new model every year’ cycle, Apple’s real generational pace can be seen in the design language. That arguably makes next year’s iPhone launch the fifth generation of the iPhone, it is only right and proper that it gets a new look.

Now read more about the hidden feature inside the new iPhone 11 that Tim Cook needs to turn on…