Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I see this as good news and also expected. Apple of course wants to control as much as possible of their products.
 
They’ll need to pay someone for modem patents. Guess who?

It does not matter if Apple creates an 'in-house modem engineering team' because Qualcomm hold the patents for a huge majority of modem technology. So where is Apple going to get their modem designs from to be able to produce a modem that rivals the quality of Qualcomm?. Intel have tried and failed.


Qualcomm holds a lot of patents but not a huge majority.



46BA20F2-4A58-4757-9E7E-12A8FEB08759.jpeg


https://www.ipegconsultancy.com/we-do-ip-brokerage/

____________

Edited to add: more information later in this thread (post #92):

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/27075871/
 
Last edited:
I see plenty of vacancies in the Apple legal department in the not too distant future. QC and all the other Mobile patent holders will have already ordered dozens and dozens of legal pads and will be preparing law suits as we discuss this very topic.
This area of technology is a patent minefield or rather should be called "abandon hope all ye who dare challenge the patent owners'.
No mater how many agreements are put in place there will always be some that will be missed somewhere.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Delgibbons
I see plenty of vacancies in the Apple legal department in the not too distant future. QC and all the other Mobile patent holders will have already ordered dozens and dozens of legal pads and will be preparing law suits as we discuss this very topic.
This area of technology is a patent minefield or rather should be called "abandon hope all ye who dare challenge the patent owners'.
No mater how many agreements are put in place there will always be some that will be missed somewhere.

Again, how is it different than now? QC demands they pay the same license fees regardless of whether they buy QC chips, Intel chips, or design their own chips.
 
I've never had a problem with them in my iPhone 7, X & Xs.

Do you really think Apple will nail modems on their first attempt? Apple does everything on the cheap so don't expect their in-house modems to be revolutionary.

With their hardware track record their chips will support 5G, but nothing else.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Delgibbons
I question that, Apple used to be known for great quality, recently it’s been the opposite.
Apple's SoC's are the opposite of quality? Must've missed that. I think we have to at least set our expectations at what we have now from Apple's chip team, which has been doing a pretty stellar job.
 
  • Like
Reactions: raghu8912
This can only be great news for iPhones and iPads. Maybe they will also integrate a modem in the macOS lineup too, since it will be an in-house product. They won't need to worry about purchase and licensing costs "that much".
 
  • Like
Reactions: NMBob
I see this as good news and also expected. Apple of course wants to control as much as possible of their products.
This is non-sense; does Apple control digital cameras (iSight anyone)?, home back-up (time machine)?, monitors (cinema displays)?, wireless networking (Airport base stations)?
[doublepost=1549553187][/doublepost]
With their hardware track record their chips will support 5G, but nothing else.
The 5G standard hasn't been ratified yet; it's impossible for Apple to support a standard that doesn't exist yet.
 
Apple shot themselves in the foot by not getting into this way sooner! They could've invested into their own modem chips as soon as they started working on their A-series chips.
 
Yeah, the A series chips designed by Apple aren’t the best chips in the industry or anything..,

There is a world of difference between designing a system chip comprised of a number of designs supplied by ARM and Imagination and designing a whole new modem and rf circuit from whole cloth. Indeed, Apple did not attempt to design their own cores until the iPhone 8, where they designed their own GPU - but still used ARM cores for the CPUs. Apple is still pretty novice at designing its own cores. Designing a modem, with all the rf circuits, is very very complicated.

Look at Intel. I'd say they're the best in the industry (not Apple) - and they're totally vertically integrated: they design and fab. If Intel, with all their might and R&D resources can't match QC modem quality after 3 or 4 iterations, then Apple certainly won't be able to on their first attempt.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DCIFRTHS and se1000
Great news i have been waiting for this Apple has the talent to pull this off not sure why it has taken them so long to do this.
 
Their first fully-designed chip, the A5, was problem-free and a year ahead of the competition in performance. That was their first iteration.

"Fully designed" by Apple? No. Apple put together two ARM Cortex-A9 CPU cores and one Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX543MP2 GPU core, and then Samsung fabbed and packaged it. Not trying to imply what Apple did was easy - it is still an amazing feat on a first attempt. But to say they "fully designed" that is laughable.

As I said above, the first time Apple "fully designed" a complex IC was the iPhone 8 where Apple designed the GPU cores.
 
This will still be years out before we reap the benefits (late 2021 release maybe?). In the mean time we have Intel and those deemed less desirable for 2019 and the initial 5G release in late 2020.

Looking at this the 2019 iPhone release should be our most refined Intel 4G release.
 
There is a world of difference between designing a system chip comprised of a number of designs supplied by ARM and Imagination and designing a whole new modem and rf circuit from whole cloth. Indeed, Apple did not attempt to design their own cores until the iPhone 8, where they designed their own GPU - but still used ARM cores for the CPUs. Apple is still pretty novice at designing its own cores. Designing a modem, with all the rf circuits, is very very complicated.

Look at Intel. I'd say they're the best in the industry (not Apple) - and they're totally vertically integrated: they design and fab. If Intel, with all their might and R&D resources can't match QC modem quality after 3 or 4 iterations, then Apple certainly won't be able to on their first attempt.
A6 is the first A series with Apple's own CPU.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.