What's the point? I don't want to pay my cell phone provider for 24536 additional "sim cards". Tethering good enough for me.
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Apple Plans to Equip MacBooks With In-House Cellular Modems
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Eh? I travel a lot, and often find myself switching to the cellular service via the built in modem in my HP dragonfly.
note: dragonfly is an i7 work issue. The battery life compared with an MacBook is absolutely appalling. If it can make three hours using teams it is doing well. Can’t tell the diff on modem though, it is just too bad.
Do you think such MacBooks will be ESIM-only?
I imagine that the provision of a SIM card slot would be relatively expensive and, by then, we can expect ESIMs to be more widespread than now.
Indeed, it would be quite neat if you could grab an installed ESIM from a phone and put it in your MacBook for as long as you need. Whether carriers would like that... (Maybe not if you have only one ESIM - but reasonable for a second ESIM.)
I imagine that the provision of a SIM card slot would be relatively expensive and, by then, we can expect ESIMs to be more widespread than now.
Indeed, it would be quite neat if you could grab an installed ESIM from a phone and put it in your MacBook for as long as you need. Whether carriers would like that... (Maybe not if you have only one ESIM - but reasonable for a second ESIM.)
But didn't laptops used to have slots for a BYO cellular thingy? What happened to that? Took up too much space? But seems worth it for a lot of people, but maybe not enough people since hotspot is an option. I’m personally not looking to add another cellular line.
That'd probably be ideal for consumers, but comm companies are making a lot of money with separate data lines, so probably no motivation to change.
Yeah if it’s built into the SoC, does that mean it’s not an option? People will get it (and pay for it) whether or not they need it?
I guess you could choose a cellular version of each ASi SoC, but seems like it adds a lot more SKUs for Apple.
Could plug the phone into the laptop while hotspotting and probably drains the same amount of battery from the laptop. 🤷♂️
Never understood why laptops didn’t have a mobile chip for the last 10+ years. Surely if it can fit in an Apple Watch, it could fit in a laptop
A 5G modem would murder battery life. It would still have been nice to have it as an option though.
If you mean a modem then ThinkPad's have had them as an option for over 15 years and I had them on a few Sony Vaio's I bought back in the day. Most enterprise focused PC manufactures have had them as an option for well over a decade - it's nothing new.
That's exactly what is happening:
Snapdragon X Elite
Snapdragon X Elite is the most powerful, intelligent, and efficient processor in its class for Windows. Featuring: built for AI, multi-day battery-life and more.
Certainly impressive. The only issue is support for Windows Arm apps & the Windows OS itself. However, that's what Windows 12 will solve.
Absurd. Myopic.
There are...
Vast swaths of the US where a lack of broadband is a serious issue.
Other countries where public wifi is rare because cellular plans are regulated like utilities, 500GB on 5G is sub-$20/mo, and everybody tethers.
Travel hubs with terrible and/or extortionate wifi.
Field research/production situations with generators and power banks.
Minimal if any value and will add to your monthly mobile phone bill. Hotspot is automatic and as fast as a 5G in real world speeds not the hypothetical max speeds.
No! I don’t want to have to lug my iPhone around everywhere, worry about it being charged, fiddle with the settings, occasionally have to restart this or that, etc. I used to work on an iPad just for portability and built-in 5G, but missed the full functionality of a Mac. I can’t wait for Apple to finally offer cellular Macs.
Definitely.
Mind you, I think it’s a great idea to give customers the option, just like the cellular iPads, and it should have been implemented earlier (perhaps Qualcomm’s royalties were a problem), but I totally agree that using the iPhone hot-spot is the most convenient solution for many people, myself included.
When I bought my iPad Pro, I thought about getting the cellular model because I use it a lot outside my home, and I refuse to connect to public WiFis for security reasons. But then I was able to see how easy is to content my iPad to my iPhone. And when I had an iPhone 8, maybe that was a decent hit for the battery, because Intel modem and such. But now with the SE 3, with its very efficient 5G Qualcomm modem, using the iPhone as my personal hot-spot is very, very convenient.
This^. I switched to using a 12.9“ iPad Pro because I wanted cellular on my “laptop” device, primarily to avoid having to not just tether my iPhone and power it while using it as a hotspot, but at one point my cellular plan had a max number of GB’s I could use for hotspot use. I love the fact that I can pull out my iPad Pro at any point during the day (while on the road) and just use it, not having to get my iPhone out as well.
Most but not all. I probably wouldn't spend extra on dedicated wireless myself, but I could see company-owned laptops being spec'ed with wireless modems so there's a simple and secure way to stay connected without going through an employee's personal device.
Not for the first time, I wish Apple had bought up a cell provider at some point just to tie everything together.
But it probably will be like the iPad with no phone app. 
I am baffled with Apple taking this long to design/build it's own 5G cellular chip when Chinese chip company SMIC/Huawai already build it and in use in phones.