It'll be fun to see what cross licensing agreements (if any) happen. It's not like Apple or Intel have much offer.
Qualcomm Quick Charge for AirPower? 😄 I don't think so.
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Apple to Start Transitioning Away From Qualcomm Modem Chips in Late 2024 or 2025
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It'll be fun to see what cross licensing agreements (if any) happen. It's not like Apple or Intel have much offer.
Qualcomm Quick Charge for AirPower? 😄 I don't think so.
Sweet! Can't wait to get my iPhone 16 with an
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Reducing the reliance on Broadcom stuff would be great. Broadcom's code sucks and at least when I worked with them their change control and QA was junk. The same fixed bugs would pop in newer releases, over and over. It's like they copied a folder of code around, then copied it when they needed a new version...except nobody knew which folder was "current."
Anyway, look how much better W1 devices are than standard bluetooth devices, both from performance and energy point of view. If Apple could do that for WiFi it'd cause a noticeable boost in energy savings and performance, most likely.
Anyway, look how much better W1 devices are than standard bluetooth devices, both from performance and energy point of view. If Apple could do that for WiFi it'd cause a noticeable boost in energy savings and performance, most likely.
Good to know. I'll buy the last one with a Qualcomm modem, then, and let the ... enthusiastic people play with the Apple modem first 
That's what I was thinking as well, unless the Intel patents that Apple purchased can skirt around Qualcomm. Making your own proprietary radio chips seems a lot trickier (legally) than making your own SoCs.
The majority of the modem chip area is dedicated to analog circuitry which doesn't depend on small transistors to reduce power and area. Some of these are still using 65nm tech, etc. But there is a portion of the chip that does use digital circuitry and this could theoretically be integrated into their SOC on n4/n3/etc. But then that removes the flexibility of a single modem working for various different SOCs. You would have to redo new versions of all the chips to support it. So we will see what Apple goes with. The SOC does already have the control logic built-in to handle the connections to and from the modems. And most likely since the portion of digital logic that could be integrated is small it wouldn't pay for itself in power savings/performance/die area cost
No. The price is not determined by components. The components are budgeted by target price.
I want whatever you are smoking.
FYI, the next generation of the cellular standard will be called KennyG, not 6G.
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No chance of that. Intel doesn't have any critical 5G patents. If they did, Intel wouldn't need to beg someone to buy their 5G division. And Apple bought it for only $1B. That tells you the value. To put that into perspective, Apple pays $10B to Qualcomm annually.
Apple will need to get this one 100% right, before releasing it out of the gates.Good to know. I'll buy the last one with a Qualcomm modem, then, and let the ... enthusiastic people play with the Apple modem first
The iPhone 15 with usb c and a qualcomm modem is looking like the sweet spot.
Cellular iPad is the ONLY sane choice and the likely move they will make for the first year. This will effectively be a field test.
But imagine if they transitioned any phones to their new chips and they had any sort of failures or flaws in connectivity. The impact would be enormously bad PR with additional injury coming from potential lawsuits where things like E-911 or their new satellite connectivity emergency services could be disrupted.
Introducing those features (like crash detection etc) has opened the door to a litany of litigation and political debate on what is to be expected of those services for consumers and professionals.
I’d be very nervous to see an Apple designed modem replace Qualcomm in a future device without a few years of proper field testing data.
I actually think they have a lot of opportunity with this. The license fees from Qualcomm are sooo high. Everyone wishes they could get out from under it. You have to pay a percentage of the entire device price not a simple component unit price. There was a recent poll that came out saying most users don't understand the need for 5G, the speeds for 4G was fine for everyday smart phone use. I think while 5G is looking for a killer app and a reason for existing that even if Apple's modem isn't as fast as Qualcomm most regular users won't care.
Apple has ran into this problem with device driver / kext code in MacOS and iOS countless times. Component manufacturers providing them bug ridden or dated code and it getting auto injected into a new build only to replace bug fixed code from last release with the same old bugged code again.
Happened with MacOS and the intel power management features for probably over a year and a half with tremendously tedious consistency from 2019 to 2020. Caused a LOT of unnecessary RMAs and service center repairs for crashing MacBooks whose problem was just the build of OS they were running.
Problem was infuriating as it would get fixed for brief periods during the beta cycle then someone would pull in new code with the “seemingly new” code from the component supplier again and break it all over again in a subsequent build. LOL
I hope it is in 2025. I’m due for an upgrade in 2024 and don’t want the first gen chip. If it does happen in 2024 I’m not preordering and will wait to see real world performance.
Seems like an interesting move to combine cellular, WiFi, and Bluetooth all in one chip.
Edit: Presumably this new chip would be a new W chip? W4 maybe? Also with the W chips I’m surprised Apple still has ties to Broadcom.
Seems like an interesting move to combine cellular, WiFi, and Bluetooth all in one chip.
Edit: Presumably this new chip would be a new W chip? W4 maybe? Also with the W chips I’m surprised Apple still has ties to Broadcom.
Then this is why the next iPhone SE was delayed. The rumor was that they were going to do a test run of their 5G chip in the SE, basically beta-testing users of the cheaper device.
Since the SE usually comes out after the regular iPhone launch, and the iPhone 16 will be coming out in autumn 2024, I expect they'll have the hardware finalized by then and will begin shipping the next iPhone SE in spring 2025 with a design/display similar to the iPhone XR but perhaps a little smaller.
Since the SE usually comes out after the regular iPhone launch, and the iPhone 16 will be coming out in autumn 2024, I expect they'll have the hardware finalized by then and will begin shipping the next iPhone SE in spring 2025 with a design/display similar to the iPhone XR but perhaps a little smaller.
I think a big win is also to have one chip for all these functions. Reducing the chip count is money saved and reduces the motherboard.
Seems like it is going to be the intel modem fiasco all over again.
Modems and processors are two very different things. If modems were easy to make, there would be much more competition than there is.
First Intel got the boot, next up, Qualcomm and Broadcom? Is Samsung OLED next? Would be cool to have MacBook with a cellular radio built in plus wifi 7 ... 320 Mhz of clean 6 Ghz goodness.
