Qualcomm charging license fees as a percentage of the device net sale price.
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Apple Plans to Equip MacBooks With In-House Cellular Modems
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It will be eSIM. I'm 100% sure:
I'd assume Apple has been wanting and capable of doing cellular on laptops for several decades.
But now that eSIM is being adopted by more and more carriers it would finally make sense.
A physical tray would be another moving component or slot that can break. And Apple obviously wants to avoid those as much as possible.
Most definitely.But it probably will be like the iPad with no phone app.
They might even take it a step further and have you "route" and mirror the connection through an iPhone, like what we get for Apple Watch.
But the iPad style cellular is the most likely (not like Apple Watch, but still limits you from using the MacBook as a phone without owning an iPhone).
If they do this I hope they have physical SIM card socket. Sharing a 30 GB/month contract SIM across an iPad, MyFi and PC works well, but would be too expensive per device.
But closer integration means signals travel shorter, which has its own advantages. Heat dissipation can also be improved with that.
I have been using cellular iPad in the past 5 years or so and it saved me countless times. a MacBook with cellular would be an instant buy for me as I am sick of walking away from Wi-Fi and unable to do works because of poor connection.
Before people saying “build a mesh network”, “buy a better router“ etc, I am not working from my home.
Before people saying “build a mesh network”, “buy a better router“ etc, I am not working from my home.
The fundamental problem with ESIM is that they cannot be moved between devices by the user. When “transferring” an ESIM, the ESIM on the new device must be provisioned by your telco.
Apple and Google have tried to make this easy for the user by automating the process, but these nice flows only work if the carrier supports it. And outside of the US, most carriers don’t.
Many telcos in AU/UK, if they even support ESIM, require you to provision a new sim via their app. The app is often locked behind SMS 2FA on the number you’re trying to manage. So if something goes wrong, and it always does, you’re locked out of the app.
Optus in Australia won’t provision a new ESIM over the phone because they leaked all the information they use to verify their users identities. So you need to visit a physical store to move your ESIM to a different device. In the UK, O2 can only reprovision an ESIM on the same device. If you want to “transfer” your ESIM to a new device, you need to pick up a physical cardboard QR kit.
Oh, and it seems many carriers only allow ESIMs to be provisioned in their respective country of origin. So if you’re on holiday and break your phone, you need to spend thousands on an emergency flight back to your home country to provision a new ESIM, because every company under the the sun is forces SMS 2FA on us against our will, so without your sim it’s bye-bye email, banking, iCloud etc.
ESIM is great in theory, and terrible in practice because most telcos are criminally incompetent.
The ESIM spec needs to allow the user to move the ESIM between devices without involving the carrier. Until then, ESIM is useless for most of the world. I absolutely dread the day Apple removes the physical sim from other markets because it’s going to make my life hell.
They didn't dare at this point to charge you an extra 500 dollars for it...
For occasional work yes, but many carriers impose data caps on hotspots, whereas a dedicated modem for a laptop could have unlimited data. A photographer working in the field you could easily blow through a hot spot data cap in no time.
Probably a few markets that could use it, though who really wants another monthly bill? Especially when for most peoples work a wifi hotspot is more then enough. Yes the ease of it just being connected is way better than a hot spot but that just means another data plan. How many times do people want to pay for the internet? Home internet, phone and now laptop? Would be great if there was some unified plan, like pay $X amount for so much data and you can use it on any device, ranging from home wifi network use to your phone and laptop.
Plug the phone into the laptop? That’s usually what I do
The poster you’re replying to did say “most people”, not “everyone”
Do they still do that? Mine doesn't.
Even when I had a contract which appeared to say that, some years ago, I never got charged despite using my hotspot far, far more than on-device data or calls.
This has been something I’ve been asking for FOR YEARS. It’s obvious they held back because of Intel processors. Now with Apple Silicon, they could do it tomorrow, but they’d have to pay Qualcomm fees.
Give me that 12” MacBook (nothing) with 5G and take my money.
Give me that 12” MacBook (nothing) with 5G and take my money.
They were/are held back because of Qualcomm, not Intel processors.
Qualcomm charges a percentage of the net sale price of the device (in addition to the cost of the chip), so for a MacBook, that's a lot of money Apple doesn't want to pay them.
Yep Ethernet port in the works, expected in 2032. You know, it takes time to get it right.
Easy...cellular in laptops has slowly lost interest. Dell used to offer WWAN options in their business laptops years ago. It was pretty popular until cell phones and carriers started offering hotspot capability for free. Now, it's hard to find Dell Latitude that offers a WWAN option. Mobile users just don't want it -- Except MacBook users, apparently.
Everything drains the battery. Watching a movie drains the battery. Battery packs are a dime-a-dozen and a pack can recharge your iPhone 3+ times in a single charge. 100W USB chargers for the car (cig lighter type) are $30. A cellular plan for a laptop is $30 per month depending on data used and the carrier.
Won’t most people just use a Hotspot on their phone? Paying for an extra data line doesn’t sound ideal.