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Apple Designing 5G iPhone Antenna Module In-House After Being Dissatisfied With Qualcomm's Version
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5G is over hyped, with those speeds you need unlimited data caps. A 800Mbps 5G phone will run the whole 22GB data cap on mobile under 4 minutes. Your whole month limit allowance is gone in under 4 minutes of the month.
I once heard that unlimited data does not cost cellphone carriers any more, they just put it there to squeeze more money from people.
I once heard that unlimited data does not cost cellphone carriers any more, they just put it there to squeeze more money from people.
Why the heck not? They've done incredibly well with their A-series chips.
Apple had the choice, and it chose. So don’t fantasize about monopolies!
Is that a design mockup or from an actual product? To me, that’s clean, fresh and not just modern, I’d say futuristic is perhaps a better word. I like it.
Not sure what the bottom right (sliders?) represents; knowledge in the head vs. knowledge in the world (The Design of Everday Things, Don Norman).
And what about the ten years of apple-designed antennas after the iPhone 4?
My iPhone X isn’t bad for a 1st gen product. Apple learned their lesson well with the iPhone 4 so I expect even more testing than they did with the iPhone X or 11 when it comes to the antenna.
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Yeah, I hope battery life doesn’t go down due to the design/component reshuffling because I’m looking forward to it.
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- Antenna and baseband are (almost) completely separate design teams. The expertise or lack thereof in one team doesn’t relate to the other. Apple has top talent in both.
- Did the team fail Intel, or did Intel fail the team?
- Who exactly is marketing Apple’s modem team lol?
- Intel didn’t fail at the 5G modem schedule due to Apple’s price negotiating skills.
- Where have all of which Apple suppliers gone?
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Apple better leave this specialism to modem suppliers - even if they’re called QC.
Especially when “sleek design” comes into consideration (ref. butterfly keyboardssssh)
Especially when “sleek design” comes into consideration (ref. butterfly keyboardssssh)
It is entirely possible for a cellphone manufacturer to have better antenna design engineering competence than might a baseband modem supplier.
They're just holding the grudge wrong
Are you sure? It could be an issue with the front end or the baseband modem itself. Performance is only as strong as the weakest link.
Apple absolutely has a choice. They choose to add 5g they choose to purchase from Qualcomm. No one is forcing Apple to buy from Qualcomm. Apple could very easily wait until they designed their own modem.
sounds like Apple has areason to develop their own modem.
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So Apple is using inferior modems
Are you sure? It could be an issue with the front-end or antenna 🤷♂️
Nah. Apple almost never changes the pricing of a product without a revision. That they did on the HomePod is a sign that they guessed the ideal pricing incorrectly.
Could be. Or did they let the early adopting, hardcore fans who were willing to pay more, pay more? Front loading and banking profit dollars, so they could buy down the price for later, less fervent and more price-sensitive buyers? (The original iPhone comes to mind...)
Only Apple knows 😁
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They never do that with any kind of product, though. You'd probably have to go back to the original iPhone to find another example, and that one was not exactly popular either (and came with an apology and a gift card).
I don't exactly expect to see a Mac Pro price cut.
I don't think that was a strategy, though. Or if it was, they misjudged the possible reaction.
True.
Well the intel modems underperform compared to Qualcomm modems. So Apple is technically using inferior modems.
So sure, Apple could have simply miscalculated and couldn’t sell the number of units they wanted at the original price. Apple is very careful with pricing, and they’re very, very good at it. But great market research and initial assumptions aren’t perfect; there’s always a margin of error.
But there are circumstances where, for instance, I think you could see a cut to Mac Pro. If demand is sufficiently higher than expectations such that R&D, NRE and other one-time costs can be amortized over a larger number of units. Maybe combine that with higher than expected CPU price decreases (due to pressure from competitive AMD products) and decreases in RAM/SSD prices. Who knows 🙂
Apple has to make a lot of educated guesses around price, and they don’t like to raise prices, especially on an existing model. So they likely built in a nice little buffer, which at some point they may not need. A $4,999 or $5,499 Mac Pro would be nice, but realistically, it might not really make much difference in the quantity sold.
Apple trying to make everything in house so no repair shop can source them ...
Exactly. They rarely get it wrong, which is why it sticks out so much on the HomePod.
(I don't think the HomePod is a bad product. I can imagine that they were slightly too optimistic about its market potential, though.)
Mid-cycle reductions of BTO option pricing aren't as rare, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if we see that within a year or two on the SSD and RAM pricing. Maybe even the GPU pricing. (Probably not the CPU, though. If the CPU's too pricey for you, Apple's perspective on that is: tough.)
Yeah. Price complaints on the Mac Pro come mostly from people who wanted it to be $2,999, and when the Mac Pro was available for that, they came from the same people, who then wanted it to be $1,499. That market segment is becoming more and more niche, so Apple wasn't gonna "make it up in volume". You either need one or you don't.
Are they? Or is an antenna or RF front end not supplying a good enough signal to other components to allow the modem to do its job?
It’s a system. Without proper testing, it’s not possible to determine where among the various components/subsystems the problem lies.
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