The iPhone 12 Is a Smartphone Made for Our Terrible Times

The new model uses Apple’s new A14 Bionic system on a chip, which has 11.8 billion transistors spread across six cores and powers a whole slew of cool new features.The feature that will have the biggest day-to-day impact for most users is the improved set of cameras. Kudos, as always, to Apple’s hardware engineers for designing the devices we’ll need in this previously unfathomable future.Some have speculated that the front-facing cameras’ FaceID unlocking feature may be significantly faster on the new phones. Should circumstances require it, the new iPhones are now water-resistant down to 6 feet for as long as 30 minutes.The iPhone 12 comes with a new ProMotion OLED display, which Apple is calling the "Super Retina XDR" screen. Whether you’re watching news anchors debunk political misinformation or trying to catch up with the incomprehensible meme cycle, this brilliant display is the tool for the moment, your perfect window for the end of the world.The most unusual feature is a new lidar sensor, which uses lasers to scan subjects in three dimensions. These are dark days, but the new iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max can help.The most important change to the iPhone was barely mentioned during the release event at all.