Apple's iPhone 12 series comes with built-in support for five navigation satellites - GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS and BeiDou Satellite - according to specs released on Apple's website after today's launch.
As a member of GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), China's BeiDou satellite system has gained widespread market acceptance in recent years, and it has built the world's top satellite navigation system along with American GPS, Europe's GALILEO and Russia's GLONASS.
Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo and other mainstream brands have already provided full access to the BeiDou satellite system. But outside of these brands, Apple has been indifferent to the BeiDou satellite system.
In July this year, the "iPhone does not support BeiDou navigation" issue sparked a lot of discussion among Chinese users.
iPhone may have blocked China's BeiDou navigation due to performance issues
According to Apple's official website, GPS/GNSS is built in for cellular networks and wireless connectivity on devices ranging from iPhone 6 to iPhone 11, as well as the first and second generation iPhone SE.
Tencent Tech reported in July that the Intel baseband used in Apple's last four generations of phones is BeiDou-enabled for navigation and positioning. However, an Apple employee revealed that the official documents had mentioned that there were performance problems with the BeiDou signal on iPhone phones, so Apple eventually blocked the BeiDou signal.
However, when asked by Guancha.cn about this, Apple said that the iPhone 11 model already uses BeiDou as part of its location data system. However, Apple did not provide any explanation for this statement.
As for the iPhone 12 series released today, Apple has only added BeiDou support in the introduction of the new iPhone models, rather than showing support in the iPhone 11 series at the same time.
Apple reportedly tweaking iPhone 12 to support China's BeiDou Navigation
