Yeah, Apple finally came to the realization that whatever they produced probably wouldn’t come close to Qualcomm’s best or even second best.
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Apple to Discontinue Custom 5G Modem Development, Claim Reports
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The truth lies somewhere to do with how to create one which is as good/better while trying to avoid the minefield of patent infringement.
If you think macOS/iOS/iPadOS/tvOS/watchOS has bugs you're naive to the mountains of bugs in other platforms.
The most buggy application I know is Logic Pro, but compared to Pro Tools it's rock solid. Many applications in macOS for instance don't even leverage Cocoa and use Lua Script, Qt, GTK+ and other toolkits with sketchy interfaces to Cocoa.
Linux is designed to be constantly a work-in-progress and on its desktop it's a minefield of bugs everywhere. I've used it for over two decades. Windows has a constant stream of hot fixes. Once we had dozens of platforms from SGI, Sun Microsystems, BeOS all three their IP consumed and replaced with Linux for Server Side only platforms.
I have no doubt much of OS X is going through a complete overhaul, which impacts four other platforms, now five with their headset OS, never mind CarPlay OS currently in development.
I have my issues with Motion, Compress, FCP and LP, not to mention Affinity Software Suite, Pixelmator Tools, and other pure and native OS X applications, including Pages, Numbers and Keynote, but it would be rather odd if Apple's entire OS and Application ecosystem were all industry leading for their capabilities, stability and usability, at the same time.
Ah yes, that's a worthy correction - this could signal a shift of development efforts towards 6G or some other tech.
I imagine the modem project developing slowly/conservatively as well, since it has to integrate with ongoing Apple Silicon plans - another layer of engineering verification for designs that already integrate CPU, GPU, RAM.
Please correct me if I am wrong but wasn't there a stage where Apple switched to using Intel modem's in one of the model's of iphone but it caused so many customer complaints due to poor reception and connectivity that Apple reverted back to using Qualcomm modems.
From what I understand from the articles that MR has posted on this modem issue over the years is that whilst Intel and others make perfectly acceptable modem chips, Apple's performance requirements are so high that these perfectly acceptable chips do not match up to Apple's high performance requirements and unfortunately the only company that does meet the requirements that Apple wants is Qualcomm. The modem issue is totally of Apple's doing because of their performance requirements being so high it automatically disqualifies all the other modem chip makers bar one, Qualcomm.
Apple can quite easily use Intel modems if Apple was to drop it's stance on requiring a very high performance modem chip for it's iphones. The fact Apple is not prepared to low it's performance standards is what is causing all the trouble.
Apple and the majority of companies/businesses all over the world is no different to how many of us behave in general life. Once we've experienced the best, we want more of it but cheaper and thus go looking for it. Apple has experienced the best with Qualcomm and they have been looking at how to get it but at a cheaper cost. Making the modem chip themselves would have been cost effective in the long term but that is only if they could make a chip that matched or even surpassed Qualcomm's modem chip performance. It has taken Apple all these years and many billions of $$$ to realize that what makes Qualcomm's modem chips so good is the core design of the chip, a design method that differs to everyone else and is protected by a number of patents.
Apple were caught using Qualcomm patents without their permission and told to stop. Apple have tried to get the patents in question that relate to the core design of the modem chip thrown out but that failed.
Apple need to face the hard truth. To obtain the high performance specs of a modem chip in their iphones they need to either use Qualcomm's modem chips, pay Qualcomm licensing fee's to use the patents they need to use or to drop their high performance requirements and use Intel modem chips instead.
This has been a extremely costly exercise for Apple, one that I think the company shareholders will not take too kindly too. Somebody will be made a scapegoat over this and lose their job.
From what I understand from the articles that MR has posted on this modem issue over the years is that whilst Intel and others make perfectly acceptable modem chips, Apple's performance requirements are so high that these perfectly acceptable chips do not match up to Apple's high performance requirements and unfortunately the only company that does meet the requirements that Apple wants is Qualcomm. The modem issue is totally of Apple's doing because of their performance requirements being so high it automatically disqualifies all the other modem chip makers bar one, Qualcomm.
Apple can quite easily use Intel modems if Apple was to drop it's stance on requiring a very high performance modem chip for it's iphones. The fact Apple is not prepared to low it's performance standards is what is causing all the trouble.
Apple and the majority of companies/businesses all over the world is no different to how many of us behave in general life. Once we've experienced the best, we want more of it but cheaper and thus go looking for it. Apple has experienced the best with Qualcomm and they have been looking at how to get it but at a cheaper cost. Making the modem chip themselves would have been cost effective in the long term but that is only if they could make a chip that matched or even surpassed Qualcomm's modem chip performance. It has taken Apple all these years and many billions of $$$ to realize that what makes Qualcomm's modem chips so good is the core design of the chip, a design method that differs to everyone else and is protected by a number of patents.
Apple were caught using Qualcomm patents without their permission and told to stop. Apple have tried to get the patents in question that relate to the core design of the modem chip thrown out but that failed.
Apple need to face the hard truth. To obtain the high performance specs of a modem chip in their iphones they need to either use Qualcomm's modem chips, pay Qualcomm licensing fee's to use the patents they need to use or to drop their high performance requirements and use Intel modem chips instead.
This has been a extremely costly exercise for Apple, one that I think the company shareholders will not take too kindly too. Somebody will be made a scapegoat over this and lose their job.
Yeah, I remember those kinds of comments. Really funny and they would argue to no end 🤣🤣
Once Intel support is officially done with, I'm confident things will improve a lot with respect to less bugs, on the OS and application side of things.
You'll likely find my multiple concerns about Apple not being able to get there without stepping on Qualcomm IP, and the respect I have for Qualcomm founders and their early systems engineering work in the field of modern digital communications.
Greed has nothing to do with it. Apple trying to reduce costs and increase control is smart no matter how you define it. If this rumor is true, it's too bad the effort didn't yield the desired results. I hope apple continues to work at it until it gets done, if that's even possible.
I think you are ignoring the most important point in the whole article..
"plus Apple has to be careful not to infringe on Qualcomm patents while developing the chip."
Of the 20K patents that make up the 5G space, Qualcomm owns like 4133 of the patents on 4/5/6GB modems (Huawei owns some 5604 patents on 5G technology and Samsung and ZTE owning each another 4000 each and there are a number of other companies each owning smaller patents on 5G tech) So doing something NEW that isn't patented by any of them (or at least in a way that doesn't infringe upon their patents.. I mean if you have to pay royalties for the usage of a patent, there is no real reason to develop your own chip when you can just buy the chip). Its one reason why intel exited the business.. the performance relative to the effort wasn't worth it when qualcomm practically owns the market segment via patents. There are lots of other modem companies out there but their performance is terrible. And Apple doesn't want to release a subpar device (especially if that lackluster performance can be traced back to them..).
So yes.. doing the modem itself is easy.. doing it in a way that makes it at least on par or better than qualcomm is hard.. doing the above while NOT touching their patents (and you can bet your ass if Apple did infringe Huawei or Qualcomm would be there with a lawer faster than you can spell LAWSUIT) is VERY VERY difficult and costly. (and while Huawei would love if Apple used their patents, it would open the door for the US government to sue Apple since there is a tech embargo on Huawei's tech).
The reality is, the technical aspect is easy.. (which is what apple was basing their decision on).. its the logistical/legal aspect that's the real killer.
Its not JUST Qualcomm (though that's the only US one that's the primary patent owner... Google and Intel (now apple) both own some patents here..
The biggest patent holder for 5G is Huawei and using their patents would open a VERY undesirable can of worms (with the government and royalies) and might even get Qualcomm back into a legal fight depending on the terms they have with apple.. (like using a non-compete agreement with another 3rd party).
Yes, there are other patents. But it was Viterbi and Jacobs (two of the founders of Qualcomm) that long ago pretty much wrote the book and set the stage with respect to modern digital communications.
and no anti competition action by the EU or any other government...go figure 😏
I think that could be a large factor.
Even though Qualcomm has more than 100,000 patents and no doubt has very skilled attorneys, I'd guess they'd rather move ahead keeping Apple as one of their largest chip customers (with special pricing to entice Apple) than spend a lot of time and $ litigating against Apple.
What patent fight? Apple has basically none to cross license to Qualcomm. In terms of processor patents, Qualcomm seems to be doing well with Elite X without negotiating patents with Apple.
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Apple already uses and pays Huawei for patents, so does Qualcomm. Huawei and Qualcomm own standards essential patents. It’s impossible to do 5G without those two.
