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Good for Apple. Vertical integration and less reliance on third parties is likely a good call here. If the modem performs well, it may push Qualcomm and others to innovate more, similar to the effect of the M1 chip. The more companies competing, the better for consumers.
Qualcomm to innovate more?
Qualcom already has their SD888 with an integrated 5G SA modem that supports LTE also.
Apple is playing catch up, big time.
They don't even have sample silicon, let alone a processor with an integrated modem. SMH...
 
Qualcomm to innovate more?
Qualcom already has their SD888 with an integrated 5G SA modem that supports LTE also.
Apple is playing catch up, big time.
They don't even have sample silicon, let alone a processor with an integrated modem. SMH...
It's all being built in-house. Apple will surprise the world like they did with the introduction of M1 chip.

Apple knows what they are doing.
 
It’s not going to happen.

No, really:
Qualcomm and Apple today announced an agreement to dismiss all litigation between the two companies worldwide. The settlement includes a payment from Apple to Qualcomm. The companies also have reached a six-year license agreement, effective as of April 1, 2019, including a two-year option to extend, and a multiyear chipset supply agreement.

We have a few years left.
 
I realize Apple needs to recover the costs of acquiring Intel's modem division, plus R and D since then. But at some point in the future, please start passing along the cost savings of all that vertical integration to the consumer. Please Apple?
Good luck with that. Also, Apple has been doing modem R&D for years before the Intel acquisition - so there's a lot more to recoup than you think :)
 
I look forward to Apple-designed 5G modems and how they perform. Furthermore, I want to see how efficient they are in terms of signal strength and battery life.
 
I don’t know exactly when Apple’s 5G modem chip will debut, but it will be about two hours before Qualcomm sues them over IP.
I'm sure that when they dropped their war and Apple agreed to buy modems exclusively from QCOM for 5 years, AAPL's lawyers also put in some provisions against future suits. Companies aren't as stupid as the average contributor to these forums seem to think.
 
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I think a lot of people don't appreciate the difficulty of designing a high performance 5G transceiver - without IP. The lawsuit by Qualcomm against Intel was huge and valid enough to make them not only reach a settlement, but to disband an entire division of the company. It's probably the most challenging and lucrative areas. I think I've seen on Macrumors that $30-$50 per iPhone goes to Qualcomm for paying licenses. Intel's transceiver design was based on Qualcomm's IP. How can Apple, who hired those same engineers develop an entirely new architecture without infringing on IP and with adequate performance - in a single generation? I don't have high hopes and this level of vertical integration doesn't buy much - until they can do something interesting with CPU/Modem integration, which may not be a good idea from an RF perspective. They could however decrease price (or keep it nearly the same) and increase volume and pay off the investment over a few years. There's a lot of variables and risk here. It would be interesting if Apple could then sell commodity 5G transceivers and compete with Qualcomm in that space.
 
11th generation Qualcomm modem that's been battle tested with previous iterations over the decade on billions and billions of smartphones (including Android) VS 1st generation Apple modem that never has seen the light of day before.

You choose
 
Apple is really going all out to bring just about everything (from ad agency to chipset) in-house. Their headquarters is appearing to be more a reflection of the one ring to rule them all - rather than a space ship.
 
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My original plan was to upgrade from my iPhone X in 2023, but I don’t want to be guinea pig for this. So, might do 2022 or 2024.
 
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