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Apple Designing 5G iPhone Antenna Module In-House After Being Dissatisfied With Qualcomm's Version
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You are mistaken. That title goes to the iPhone 5. The iPhone 5 running iOS 6 beats today’s trash by a long shot.
That Fast Company article sounds like a lot of words spun out of a one sentence rumor ("Apple is experimenting with their own antenna").
First, how does one say Apple doesn't have a good track record of designing antennas when the only counter example is the iPhone 4 and "another one"? With all the antennas in Apple products, I'd say they're doing pretty well if only one got bad press.
Second, "requires twice as much power to get the same radio signal" is a really weird thing to say. This sounds like a network matching issue which isn't the type of thing that goes undetected.
Third, in a world where we can etch circuits to nm accuracy, making antennas for mm wavelength signals isn't high stakes. It's not a car radio whip, but it's not new science. The modem is the hard part here.
Apple has the chops to design an antenna just as well a Qualcomm. Qualcomm made an antenna module in a single form factor and it doesn't fit Apple's design, so they're making their own-- it's not like they're claiming Qualcomm can't make a decent antenna, they're just saying that Qualcomm isn't doing a custom design to fit the iPhone.
First, how does one say Apple doesn't have a good track record of designing antennas when the only counter example is the iPhone 4 and "another one"? With all the antennas in Apple products, I'd say they're doing pretty well if only one got bad press.
Second, "requires twice as much power to get the same radio signal" is a really weird thing to say. This sounds like a network matching issue which isn't the type of thing that goes undetected.
Third, in a world where we can etch circuits to nm accuracy, making antennas for mm wavelength signals isn't high stakes. It's not a car radio whip, but it's not new science. The modem is the hard part here.
Apple has the chops to design an antenna just as well a Qualcomm. Qualcomm made an antenna module in a single form factor and it doesn't fit Apple's design, so they're making their own-- it's not like they're claiming Qualcomm can't make a decent antenna, they're just saying that Qualcomm isn't doing a custom design to fit the iPhone.
Yes and no. The part of 5G frequency spectrum that is sub 6 GHz frequency can use same antenna as 4G LTE. Note that 4G is all sub 6 GHz as well (as is 1G, 2G, and 3G cellular).
The antenna for mm wave 5G only is what the article is about. mm wave is frequencies at and above 28GHz. These high frequencies required special new Antenna technology, and currently a separate antenna to provide that.
Rest easy, as the majority of people in world that will utilize 5G will use sub 6 GHz 5G for next many years, many will never use mm wave 5G.
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Personally, I can hardly stand to look at iOS 6 anymore. It’s so... quaint. Very 2000s. Glad they moved on.
That's not quite accurate. A good portion of the signal is reflected. That fact is exploited in the same way we exploit the fact that buildings and hills reflect cellular-band signals today: we place multiple antennas around the phone to do MIMO.
Compared to what exactly? The software has never been the pitfall for the iPhone, Nothing else even comes close.
Yeah it has
Apple Working on Fix for iPhone XR Users Experiencing Issues on UK's O2 Network
Apple has confirmed that the iPhone XR is not working as it should on the O2 network in the U.K., reports BBC News. "We are aware of an issue...
www.macrumors.com
I'll take "Things people never said" for 500, Alex.
iPhone 4's antenna was "external", and it's true that a light grip on the phone did not cause problems. Those that held it in a full palm caused enough signal drain through their own body to prevent it from working properly. Installing a case prevented the direct skin-to-antenna contact thereby avoiding the signal-loss problem, too. Apple learned their lesson, which is what engineering is all about. And they provided free cases as a workaround, too. Not every product will work perfectly every time. What matters most is how a company responds to reported problems, and Apple does a stellar job with that.
I won't be surprised if Apple comes out with an industry-leading 5G antenna this time around.
I won't be surprised if Apple comes out with an industry-leading 5G antenna this time around.
iOS 13 heck 12 was a break but 7 was a real **** show.
air pods pro firmware
heck even tvOS has a pretty bad bug where online connections between shared iCloud syncs cause the device to lose connection. I can reproduce it every time.
hey remember this is the company that charges a premium for a premium product. That includes software and hardware.
Apple has no track record designing their own front end RF.
Current iPhones use Qorvo and Skyworks. In the past, Apple has used Broadcom/Avago for iPhone X.
Sounds like 5g iphone is gonna be quite the roller coaster. I’ll continue to wait until they get rid of that hideous camera bump that makes it impossible to have a caseless iphone.
Not matching. Antenna efficiency, i.e. radiation resistance. Small antennas are bad at efficiency, by the laws of physics.
Tell that to people who spend their entire careers and PhDs in antenna design. When you have to account for factors like detuning because somebody's hand is next to it, RF safety, other antennas and random metal pieces from the rest of the phone coupling in, and cost. It's a nasty problem.
And "mm-wave" is 30 GHz = 1 cm, which means everything within 2-3 cm is in the near-field, which given multiple antennas for MIMO, it means the whole phone is interacting.
Qualcomm's X55 5G modem uses last years QTM525 mmwave antenna module, which is ginormous and ugly. But Qualcomm's X55 5G modem supports antenna tuning which means Apple can develop their own antenna module. I say give me the fat phone with big 5000 Mah battery 🔋
Ming-Chi Kuo casts doubt on 2x2 MIMO uplink support for 5G iPhone 12 - 9to5Mac
Apple’s iPhone 12 may not support 2×2 uplink as initially expected, according to the latest report from Ming-Chi Kuo. TF...
9to5mac.com
Already indicative of Apple's design ability.
when you have something like an iphone, 90 percent of time its going into a case.
So the choice is not really there. It's like if there is only one market in town and the alternative to buying food there is to grow your own. It's not impossible, but there is no equivalent competition that offers a real choice.
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Smaller suppliers are not really realistic for Apple since I doubt any of them have the capacity to produce as many units as Apple needs. Minor Android OEMs might have a choice because they ship less units, but Apple can't realistically pick anyone other than Qualcomm.
Haha, Apple 4G or 5G antennae designs... now that's a good one! They bought a failed modem team and are marketing that they are great modem designers now. Wow! What they are good at is negotiating tech for uber discounted prices until the supplier crumbles and then they absorb the engineers to build in house. Where have all of the Apple suppliers gone? Why do they disappear?