There are now six Apple iPhones with 5G that are all technically capable of reaching incredible data speeds, with some carriers claiming up to 2 Gbps (gigabits-per-second). Those iPhones include the iPhone 12 series and the new iPhone 13 lineup.
That's much faster than the sub-100 Mbps (megabits-per-second) speeds that LTE delivered, but with current coverage you probably won't notice you're even on 5G. Those crazy data speeds that the iPhone 12 and 13 series are capable of, and those you've seen advertised by your carriers, aren't much of reality at the moment. At least, not in your day-to-day routine.
5G networks with noticeable speed upgrades are rare
The type of 5G networks that can deliver truly high speeds, called "mmWave," are extremely limited at the moment — mmWave networks are usually only found in certain pockets of dense metropolitan areas.
More often than not, coverage is even limited to single blocks, or even street segments. Running into a mmWave 5G network is more a matter of chance than certainty.
There are no killer apps that need 5G right now
There's also the lack of "killer apps" to show off the benefits of 5G, which is another reason why 5G iPhones won't feel much different from non-5G iPhones.
When fast LTE networks became widely available and the first iPhones with LTE (the iPhone 5 from 2013) came out, they enabled apps like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Netflix, and Spotify to move from laptops at home to phones on the street. Suddenly, you could do a lot more if you owned an LTE iPhone, and it became an infinitely more useful and entertaining device.
As of now, however, there isn't a killer app or feature to make use of fast data speeds from mmWave 5G — you don't need faster speeds than we have today for scrolling through social media or streaming video and music on your 5G iPhone. Or any 5G phone, for that matter.
The future of 5G is exciting, but the technology needs to grow
Though there are limitations right now, that doesn't mean that more mmWave 5G networks or killer 5G apps aren't coming. At some point, mmWave 5G will become more widely available, and it will enable richer features in social media, higher-quality video and audio streaming, and more reliable video calling.
And eventually, some of the bigger ideas for fast mmWave 5G could come to fruition, like game streaming, or even streaming your apps and iOS system from the cloud instead of running them directly from your phone. But at that point, you wouldn't need a powerful iPhone — all you'd need is a phone that's basically a screen and a battery with minimal on-board power.
Indeed, fast 5G has huge implications. It's just not here yet.
