There’s been a lot of discussion about Apple being late to the 5G game. I get it, 5G is incredibly fast compared to both LTE and even your home WiFi. And Samsung has it now.

But.

From the headline linked PC Mag article:

On a hot Las Vegas morning, my two Galaxy S10 5G phones kept overheating and dropping to 4G. This behavior is happening with all of the millimeter-wave, first-generation, Qualcomm X50-based phones when temperatures hit or exceed 85 degrees. We saw it with T-Mobile in New York, with Verizon in Providence, and now with AT&T in Las Vegas. It’s happened on Samsung and LG phones, with Samsung, Ericsson, and Nokia network hardware.

AT&T and T-Mobile both said they’ll have phones with Qualcomm’s second-generation 5G modem, the X55, later this year. This persistent overheating behavior just makes me more confident in recommending that consumers wait to buy a 5G phone.

If you’re interested in 5G, read the entire article. But one takeaway is that 5G and the rollout of the equipment that makes 5G possible is just not ready for prime time. It’s not nearly in enough places, and the first generation modems are prone to overheating.

Apple has long had a strategy of entering a market only when they could deliver brilliant performance. If Apple rolled out a 5G phone now, they’d have to raise the cost of their phones, and deliver a less than stellar experience to their customers. Lose-lose.

Will 5G be ready for Apple by September 2020? Only one way to tell. Watch next years keynote.