Apple rolled out the beta version for iOS 12.2 yesterday and it brought a number of bug fixes, optimizations, a set of new animojis, and yes, AT&T’s ‘5G E’ logo on the status bar as a part of carrier’s 5G Evolution.
Once you update to iOS 12.2 beta on your iPhone X, XS, XS Max, or iPhone XR, you’ll get new responsive animoji something that Apple does by using motion captured masked on an animal head such as giraffe or cat or dog, etc. The same feature works in FaceTime calls as well.
MacRumors spotted it yesterday when some of the users brought to light that updating to beta iOS 12.2 kicked in the ‘5G E’ logo on the status bar when it is actually still using 4G network. AT&T is one of the four major telecom carriers in the United States. AT&T kickstarted its ‘ 5G Evolution’ campaign to get its customers ready for the upcoming 5G network speculated to launch sometime in 2020 although at least in few markets initially.
AT&T integrated the fake ‘5G E’ icon on several Android smartphones with latest updates while iPhones recently received the update even though these phones are 4G-enabled and don’t have any 5G capability.
A few years ago, AT&T rebranded its 3G HSPA+ network to 4G and now, it has successfully rebranded its 4G network into ‘5G E’. AT&T’s ‘5G E’ ironically utilizes 4G LTE with 4×4 MIMO, 256 QAM, and three-way carrier aggregation that allowed it to a maximum speed of 40Mbps while a later speed test by OpenSignal measurements found out that the 4G speed nationwide is at an average of 15Mbps.
AT&T will integrate carrier’s 5G on a sub-6GHz spectrum which has successfully tested with a speed of a gigabit per second over millimeter wave frequency. 5G is incoming and it is expected to roll out sometime in 2020 although we have already seen several smartphones (both released and upcoming) in the headlines such as Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 5G, Samsung Galaxy F, Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, and other brands like Huawei, Sony, OnePlus, and even Apple is working on the same.