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Apple-Designed 5G Modem to Be Separate From A-Series Chip, Again Rumored to Debut in 2023 iPhones
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Can we trust that this 80/20 rumor is accurate? Of course not.
My own sense of marketing/strategy says that if they don't put AppleModem in the 15 Pro/15 Pro Max/15 Pro Ultra Super Duper Max, they are admitting the AppleModem is not a premium product. I think they'd rather delay the roll-out of AppleModem altogether than introduce it as a second-class product and then have to fight to prove that AppleModem2 is now ready for premium.
The thing is, the introduction of M1 established it immediately as top-end within its class (consumer/business portable/desktop CPUs). It's definitely not second-class at what it does. M1 Pro and M1 Max are more powerful and add specific capabilities, but they are not qualitatively superior (same technology, same core designs, same category-topping performance, etc.) - they're quantitatively superior (more RAM, more cores, more displays).
When it comes to modems, that quantitative thing is seen through a different lens. It's not about power users, it's about capabilities anyone can tap into - does it support mmwave 5G? Does it support every cellular band in every country? Dual-SIM? Is that Dual SIM "standby" (can only be connected to one call/channel at a time) or "active" (can be connected to both channels concurrently)?
The qualitative aspects of a modem (from the end-user perspective) come down to things like voice quality/noise, stable connections, dropped calls, data throughput (a minimum of retransmitted packets, for example), performance in areas of poor coverage, efficient power utilization, etc. For most users, this falls into the "it just works" (or doesn't work) category - things that are noticed only when they don't work.
Apple's approach is to associate all it's products with the same level of quality. Lower-priced Apple products may lack features/capabilities that are present in higher-priced products, but they don't skimp on build quality. Even if they do use different modems in the iPhone 15 mini and iPhone 15 than they use in iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, I don't expect the qualitative performance of those modems to be significantly different - it'll be features that separate them (maybe Dual SIM Active mode for the Pros, Dual SIM Standby mode for the others).
Well, you're wrong. Integration improves power efficiency, reduces cost, and saves room in a phone that can be used to increase the battery size. Last year's Snapdragon 865 actually used a separate 5G modem chip because Qualcomm's design wasn't ready, this year's 888 re-integrates the modem. I'm pretty certain that Apple is also aiming to integrate their modem with the CPU (in fact, it's probably one of the reasons why the bought Intel's modem business because they were falling behind Qualcomm's integrated solutions in some ways), but they may not be ready in the first generation.
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It's a shame that Apple doesn't have any patent attorneys to look over the work to ensure it will withstand such onslaughts.
That's why I'm wondering if they might put the modem in the iPad or even MacBook first. It's a good place to test out their capabilities where modem performance is not as important, without tacitly admitting to be worse, which would happen if they only put it in lower end iPhones.
Snapdragon 865 + external X55 offers better battery life on 4G than 855 with integrated X24 modem. This fact comes straight from the CEO of Qualcomm.
Qualcomm separated the X55 modem last year because of heat and performance issues. X55 was effectively a first gen modem. Qualcomm required everyone who wanted to buy X55 to buy Snapdragon 865. Guess why Qualcomm is integrating it now?
It has nothing to do with power efficiency and there is no engineering truth to that claim. Save cost? Again, no. The modem can remain on 7nm and doesn't need to use expensive leading edge. Save room? Yes, but Apple's sandwich logic board packaging makes it a non-issue.
If Apple wanted to integrate their modem, they would have done it.
I mean maybe, but at the same time Apple didn’t release new versions of those higher powered Macs until the M1 Pro and Max chips were ready. I would think it would shoot themselves in the foot almost admitting it’s not as powerful. If anything they’re ready now for the lower end but are putting the finishing touches for the higher end so that it’ll be ready by 2023 iPhones.
Huh? iPad and MacBook is far more demanding on network performance than iPhone. Those users are more likely working on big files, desktop websites, VPN connections, and virtualization. If performance were poor, those users would be the first to notice. iPhone and Watch users are the ones that wouldn't notice a 4G vs. 5G connection and it makes sense to deploy there first.
You do have a valid point. The elephant in the room is China with its demands over Taiwan.
Hmmm interesting.idk about speeds, Qualcomm are really good,and perhaps apple's won't be as good
As for efficiency,while it may be more efficient than Qualcomm's, it being discrete will make it more power hungry (as seen with sd865 and x55 modem) ,so it should balance
Tdlr; most likely not an improvement in any domain.
Cost will be lower but as always apple will pass the savings on themselves ( apple like apple a lot, so they offer themselves some more money,can't have enough ehe)
As for efficiency,while it may be more efficient than Qualcomm's, it being discrete will make it more power hungry (as seen with sd865 and x55 modem) ,so it should balance
Tdlr; most likely not an improvement in any domain.
Cost will be lower but as always apple will pass the savings on themselves ( apple like apple a lot, so they offer themselves some more money,can't have enough ehe)
It could be as simple as flexibility to choose which modem to pop in nearer the time. If they’re designing the 2023 model already (which I’ve no doubt they will be in some form) then keeping the door open to an external chip is probably a good idea unless you are 100% certain you can deliver an integrated chip for all circumstances and regions.
The 20% likely refers to the older iPhones (like the iPhone 13) which currently still use Qualcomm modems. Apple will keep them around to serve as cheaper alternatives, and my guess is that Apple will simply keep their design as is and won’t retrofit them with the new Apple models.
Yes, because they made other improvements.
Exactly, just like Apple's modem chip will be.
Well, I work in this industry and can tell you that you are dead wrong. Everyone is racing to integrate their modems into mobile CPUs, not just Qualcomm.
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Apple's 5G modem won't be first gen silicon. Intel already took that lesson and Apple absorbed it.
You work in the industry, yet you don't understand why it's happening. "Everyone" in the industry isn't Apple. Qualcomm is trying to displace Intel and AMD by bundling modems with everything and climbing up the ladder. That doesn't mean it's the best engineering move. It's certainly not the right one for Apple.
About 20% of die space is dedicated for a 5G modem, which could easily be used to double CPU cores instead. How many iPad Air, MacBook Air, or even iPad Pro buyers are willing to pay for that?
The assertion was that Apple only now has ARM chips that can beat Intel's offerings. It's foolish to suggest that they have to beat all of Intel's chips before they're considered any good at all, especially when you consider the performance per watt.
That's only when they started their interest in ARM. If you look at any number of historic sources you can see when they stopped and started again.
PS: It's so odd to read comments suggesting that the beginning of a company's efforts into a technology only begins when they have a shipping product.
Well, if Macs never offered built in cell connectivity, why would any company want to invest in creating software for it?
And there's another issue you mentioned, Windows has the backwards compatibility for software from ages ago, that runs on modern hardware. Macs? not so much.
Reminds me of something an old phone maker said when Apple was working on it’s first phone. I can’t even remember that company’s name now…
Wired is easy. Cellular is hard. I hope they do it better than qc. They have their work cut out for them.
Apple loves the word magical. QC modems have that magic. Better than anybody else. Alt least for now.
I didn't actually know about the Nortel deal, so that was a great tip.
I just read up on it. In the deal, Apple bought Nortel's patents, not Nortel's talent.
If you remember, the patent wars between the big tech companies were in full swing around that 2010-2012, and all indications are that Apple outbid Google and others to give themselves leverage against other patent holders.
In fact, just 2 weeks before this deal went down, Apple had just completed a cross-licensing deal with Nokia following a long-running patent infringement row (I worked at Nokia at the time).
There are no direct indications that Apple made this purchase to develop their own modem at the time, but perhaps you have better information on this than me.
However, if we do count buying Nortel's patents in 2011 as the start of Apple's modem efforts, then maybe we can count Apple co-founding ARM in 1990 as the start of their own chip efforts too?
PS. Your point about Apple chips being faster/more power efficient than Intel before the M1 was announced is reasonable, but I didn't want to go there because I felt it wasn't apples to apples when you couldn't run any software on both intel and Ax.
Peace, brother.
I didn't actually know that - thanks.
On a cheeky note, if we count co-founding ARM as the beginning of their chip development, goddamn did it take a long time