I don't really need to upgrade my iPhone this year, but I skipped last year too. I'm primarily concerned about battery life as my iPhone 8 needs to be charged a couple times a day now. At the same time, I'm mostly at home and not returning to the office until sometime next year so it isn't as if I'm often far from an outlet. I've also noticed some lag when texting (sometimes takes a second or two for words to appear). I couldn't give fewer fucks about 5G. 120Hz refresh rate would have been nice this year, but I only notice it on my iPad Pro when I'm paying attention. I think it's mostly for the Apple Pencil anyway which I don't use or have.
I've been trying to figure out which case to buy. I'm between Apple's silicone case, Mous Limitless 3.0, and Caudabe Sheath. I'm leaning toward the Limitless 3.0. I'm open to recommendations. I used an Anker Karapax on iPhone 8. It seems Anker has been out of the phone case/screen protector game since 2017.
Yeah, that's kind of the annoying part of the whole thing. Apple removing 2 accessories because they presume you have plenty of them and it's better for the environment. But then they package an accessory that you can't use. If you want to use it, you need to buy a separate plug, which will probably waste more packaging that Apple will save, so the environment suffers. It also puts an unnecessary hurdle between the consumer and a marketed feature of the device: fast charging.
Full disclosure: I fall into the category of people who don't need an included power adapter. I bought Apple's USB-C 29w power adapter in 2017 for the iPad Pro which also came with a USB-A 12w power adapter. I previously bought a 12w power adapter in 2015 for my iPhone 6S.
That said, I'm still of the mindset that an at least 18w power adapter should have been included with the entire iPhone 12 line this year. I have no doubt Apple actually cares about the environment (though, to be fair, it also likes to brag about caring about the environment). However, as you alluded to, Apple had been encouraging people to buy a higher wattage power adapter for years. As of last year, Apple included a 5w power adapter with every iPhone since forever except the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max which included an 18w power adapter. On a 5w power adapter, the iPhone 11 Pro Max apparently takes about three and a half hours to charge.
Apple not including a power adapter with the iPhone 12 line is
almost defensible. Everyone upgrading from a previous generation iPhone already has a method to charge an iPhone. The included Lightning-to-USB-C cable is there mostly for anyone new to the ecosystem. Chances are, most people have access to at least one USB-C port. No one
needs a power adapter; it's just infinitely more convenient. Still, if removing the power adapter was the plan, it really should have been a three to four year plan that started with including a higher wattage power adapter for a few generations and switching to USB-C years ago. I know, I've been thumping that card for years. Apple could have helped standardize USB-C in like 2015, and I'm still salty about it.
Anti-Apple folk have been quick to point out greed. Maybe? That's hardly exclusive to Apple. Samsung is trolling Apple again but will probably drop the power adapter in the next year or two. The real savings are in shipping as the boxes are like half the height now. I don't think Lightning licensing fees are really a primary motivator here. First, Apple has actually reduced the cost of licensing fees over the years. Second, Apple's endgame here seems to be to nix Lightning altogether and going port-less which would partially explain its refusal to embrace USB-C. The iPad gets USB-C because it's supposed to be a computer. Fine. Maybe that three to four year plan starts now to ultimately phase out Lightning, giving Apple's hardware engineers a little more internal space to work with.