You didn’t really think the iPhone 12 delay saga was already over, now, did you? After all, we’re still roughly five months away from the most optimistic launch scenario, and it remains impossible to predict how the coronavirus pandemic might unfold during this time and to what degree it will continue to impact the mobile industry.

Could the iPhone 12 family go on sale in early November?

We can’t think of many sources more reliable than the “people familiar with Apple’s plans” routinely used by the WSJ to verify speculation originating from other publications, tipsters, and leakers. Hence, you can probably bet the farm on a delay of “about a month” being the company’s current intention for the “production ramp-up of its flagship iPhones coming later this year.”

Of course, there’s still plenty of time for that plan to change, with mass production typically ramped up in the “early summer” ahead of a normal September release of a new iPhone generation and inventory build-up “around August.” Assuming the ongoing global health crisis will allow Apple to stick to its current schedule, we could see the iPhone 12 quartet commercially rolled out around the world sometime in late October or early November.

The Wall Street Journal, by the way, reconfirms the screen sizes (ranging from 5.4 to 6.7 inches) and OLED technology of the four “new iPhone models” scheduled for a release “later this year” while vaguely mentioning “some of these” will support 5G connectivity.

Is fingerprint recognition still on the table?

Obviously, Apple has no intention to leave Face ID behind, so if Touch ID were to be embedded into the OLED screen of one or several iPhone 12 variants, these would undoubtedly use both features for maximum convenience, versatility, and security. 

Unfortunately, the Qualcomm-supplied ultrasonic technology Apple is rumored to use on its first 5G iPhones doesn’t exactly excel in terms of accuracy on many Android handsets that are already equipped with under-display fingerprint scanners. Then again, the iPhone 12 could adopt a brand-new and vastly improved solution, although if you ask us, a delay until 2021 still seems significantly more plausible.