I Repeat Myself (5G vs. LTE Edition)
The author revisits his 2022 decision to keep his iPhone on LTE to save battery life, noting that regular 5G offered no practical speed advantage over LTE. By 2026, he found himself back on 5G without a clear reason and has since switched back to LTE, recommending users try LTE day-to-day and enable 5G only for hotspot tethering or crowded venues.
Background
- John Gruber is the author of Daring Fireball, a long-running Apple-focused blog. He is widely read in tech circles for his commentary on Apple products and strategy.
- 5G comes in two main flavors: "regular" (sub-6 GHz) and "ultra-wideband" (mmWave). Regular 5G offers speeds similar to LTE (4G) but uses more battery. MmWave is extremely fast but very short-range and rare.
- "A Tale of Two Modems" is Gruber's earlier post discussing a leak suggesting Apple will use Qualcomm's mmWave modems only in U.S. iPhone 18 Pro models — likely due to cost or design trade-offs. This is relevant because most of the world never got meaningful mmWave deployment.
- The core tension: cellular carriers and phone makers pushed 5G as a huge leap, but for many users in practice, regular 5G offers no speed benefit over LTE while measurably draining the battery faster.