Because of one failure report? Geez.
Also, by that standard, there is something in every generation of iPhone that is “first gen tech”, so do let me know when I should buy again. 2040? 2050?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple's C1X Modem Faces First Reported Failure in iPhone Air
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Also, by that standard, there is something in every generation of iPhone that is “first gen tech”, so do let me know when I should buy again. 2040? 2050?
At a conservative and very disappointing 3% estimated share out of all iPhones sold, that is around 3 million units. So yes, millions.
Last edited by a moderator:
It’s a crap modem because it’s in iPhone Air. When they start using it in iPhone Pro Max it will suddenly become best modem ever.
zilchfox
macrumors 6502
falainber
macrumors 68040
Reported how? On Reddit? Very few people do that. Most people would "report" it to Apple but Apple is not going to share this statistics. So, the real ratio is simply not known.
It will be very busy times for the editorial team at MacRumors if they'll be writing news every time a phone breaks down... 🙂
jmgregory1
macrumors 68040
Twice now I’ve experienced my iPhone Air has not received calls, while my M4 iPad Pro was getting the calls. When I picked up the iPhone Air and tried to call out, it immediately showed call failure. Required a full restart to get it to work, both times this happened. Fully up to date on software, not running betas. Once it happened while in the car driving home, and today it just happened while in the office on WiFi. I think I’ll report it to Apple and see what they say.
My iPhone 14 Pro was effectively broken by an iOS update.
Cellular showed as connected, but there was no 5G data and calls kept dropping. I reset the phone eight times — no improvement.
I took it to the Apple Store, and to their credit, they acknowledged the issue immediately. They replaced the entire logic board, camera system, and battery free of charge. The phone was over 1.5 years old.
According to the diagnosis, the Qualcomm baseband chip was damaged during the iOS update — specifically during the modem firmware update. It essentially bricked the baseband.
What I find interesting is that I haven’t seen widespread reporting about Qualcomm modem failures in this context. Yet when Apple is involved, the narrative quickly turns into something much bigger. Not every hardware failure tied to an update is a scandal — especially when it’s handled properly and resolved without cost to the customer.
Cellular showed as connected, but there was no 5G data and calls kept dropping. I reset the phone eight times — no improvement.
I took it to the Apple Store, and to their credit, they acknowledged the issue immediately. They replaced the entire logic board, camera system, and battery free of charge. The phone was over 1.5 years old.
According to the diagnosis, the Qualcomm baseband chip was damaged during the iOS update — specifically during the modem firmware update. It essentially bricked the baseband.
What I find interesting is that I haven’t seen widespread reporting about Qualcomm modem failures in this context. Yet when Apple is involved, the narrative quickly turns into something much bigger. Not every hardware failure tied to an update is a scandal — especially when it’s handled properly and resolved without cost to the customer.
My first generation power book 145 was great.
My first generation Newton 2000 was great.
My first generation Apple Vision Pro is great.
cicalinarrot
macrumors 65816
Congratulations! For not understanding what I meant.
I don't care about any single experience you may have had. It's just anecdotal. And of course, many people will be very happy, like you, with a 1st gen product. But they don't know what problem may occur.
Most big issues are only visible in large numbers.
But I quoted all very recent models that had very common issues many people didn't see but that made them way more unreliable than the S generation.
How do I know? Worked in a repair shop and know the models that broke more frequently, I've seen hundred of devices and the whole community confirms what I said. The iPhone 4 antennagate, the iPhone 6 bendgate and touch chip (moved on the display in the 6S), the 7 audio chip that broke after a few drops, solved with the 8 (this used to pay my bills in those years)...
With the iPhone it's just incredible, I can't think of a first iteration of a model without a major design problem for about a decade!
It's not like you'll necessarily experience this, it's just that the next generation will be way safer.
Want more?
The dumb new MacBook keyboard switches that broke the whole thing if a minuscule crumb ended up under them.
The flex cable that connected the first Retina Macs display, it was too short in the first generations and broke, and since it was soldered to the screen, it was a $400 damage if you couldn't find a shop that could fix just the cable. Pretty rare to find them and Apple just replaced the whole display. Bad luck if warranty expired!
First iMac 27, the powerful graphics cards with a terrible cooling system (youtubers demonstrated how drilling a bigger air intake in the back could mostly solve the problem) had the main chip desoldered by the heat, very frequent. Got a little better with the next generations (this one was actually never fully solved until Retina iMacs).
The poor SSD health on the M1 Mac Mini.
Let's never mention the iPhone 5c.
Or the 12" MacBook, very cool device! Very experimental device. Turned out to be just bad.
Backing you up: did people forget that the first model year of a car after the redesign always have the most issues; first gen Intel Macs overheating because of bad thermal paste application; 2016 MacBook Pros and the butterfly keyboard and the display flex cable issue; iPhone 12 having bad 5G compared to 13 and later; etc.
Delgibbons
macrumors 6502a
Penny for Qualcomm’s thoughts….
A reported hardware failure affecting Apple's new in-house C1X 5G modem in the iPhone Air has surfaced online, marking the first known real-world incident involving the company's own baseband technology.
The iPhone Air is the first iPhone model to ship with the Apple's internally designed C1X 5G modem, replacing Qualcomm's X75 modem used across the iPhone 16 lineup. The transition to Apple-designed modems follows years of development after Apple acquired Intel's smartphone modem business in 2019 and began building its own baseband engineering teams and intellectual property portfolio with the goal of reducing reliance on Qualcomm and increasing efficiency.
A newly reported incident was first documented in a support thread on Reddit spotted by Wccftech, where the user "itstheskylion" described waking up to find the device had completely lost cellular reception. According to the user, the phone displayed no signal bars and diagnostics indicated a hardware-level cellular problem.
The device had reportedly been kept in a case since purchase and showed no signs of physical damage. The user said that multiple troubleshooting steps were attempted, including restarting the device, performing a soft reset, and resetting network settings, but none restored cellular connectivity. The user also reported using a dual-SIM configuration with two different carriers, with neither connection functioning, which suggests the issue was not related to a carrier outage or network-specific disruption.
Baseband hardware failures are uncommon in modern smartphones due to extensive factory testing and validation processes, but large-scale production inevitably includes a small percentage of defective units. Apple has historically replaced and collected devices that exhibit unusual behavior for internal analysis, particularly when new technologies are involved. At present, there is no evidence that the issue is widespread or indicative of a broader reliability concern.
As Apple prepares for the next generation of iPhones, real-world reliability data from early deployments of the C1 and C1X modems is likely to be closely monitored internally as part of the company's ongoing development work. The C1X is expected to come to the iPhone 17e next month, while the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and foldable iPhone are rumored to feature Apple's next-generation C2 modem.
Article Link: Apple's C1X Modem Faces First Reported Failure in iPhone Air
G5isAlive
Contributor
and clickbait MR reports it... and will no doubt one particular mod will chastise me again for pointing it out lol. waves.
but eh, what a nothing burger. I should write a reddit post about how the iPhone Air saved my life by teleporting me out right before a brontosaurus stepped on my car.
but okay MR needs to stay in business. check.
The reality is all tech will fail for some person at some point. Full stop. If anyone wants to believe differently, I have a bridge to sell you. Only time will tell if the Apple Modem is flawed, but so far the statistics look good.
1 or 2 failures out of 4-6M sold so far? I'd take that failure rate of 2 in 5 million. Apple replaced the phone under warranty, user is made whole, Apple does deep diagnostics to understand & correct any issues in subsequent modem or Air production.
Oh, did we hear any issues w/16e and its C1 modem
No? Then it’s not a widespread issue. A concern, maybe, but this is consumer electronics, failures can and do occur. At Apple’s number of iPhone produced (over 247M in 2025), nothing is perfect, even Apple.
Oh, did we hear any issues w/16e and its C1 modem
No? Then it’s not a widespread issue. A concern, maybe, but this is consumer electronics, failures can and do occur. At Apple’s number of iPhone produced (over 247M in 2025), nothing is perfect, even Apple.
Apple is/was happy to pay for the modem chips & parts, even for a reasonable licensing fee, but to be charged a fee based on the value of the entire phone is unreasonable, plus puts Apple at a distinct disadvantage since it sells premium phones while cheaper Android phones using the same modem get charged less.
Unfortunately Apple was stuck with Qualcomm when Intel couldn’t become a 5G modem supplier. But that didn’t mean Apple gave up, they quietly took whatever time it took to create and perfect a competitive modem design and fabricated part.
As Apple gains more modem chip experience, it can control more of its silicon ambitions and eventually eliminate Qualcomm parts AND its licensing fee, which are not inconsequential costs.
If Apple modems are competitive with Qualcomm parts, then Apple has achieved a lot.
emulator
macrumors 65816
To create exciting products, you need exciting leadership, which is sorely lacking in the current regime.
Neil J. Squillante
macrumors 6502
TL;DR: It might be your carrier and not the modem if your account is old.
I'm an iPhone Air user and had this problem. But I also had this problem with my iPhone 13 mini. The problem was with the carrier.
I moved my number to a VoIP service and then back to the carrier. This was part of a larger project involving several phone numbers and not aimed at this issue. I didn't intend to move this number back to the carrier but I changed my mind about which number I wanted on my iPhone. Long story short, provisioning a new line at the carrier cleared up whatever was previously limiting my service and now I get 5G at home. I also get reception at some previous dead spots I frequent so I'm confident it was my account and not new 5G equipment installed in the interim.
Just wait until you learn that every single device ever made has at least one component fail out of millions.
It's absolutely ragebaiting. But hey, at least we now see how many people have no idea how mass manufacturing works.
code-m
macrumors 601
It’s a new add-on feature, Apple is selling a new telescopic antenna to increase signal strength.
Single rear camera, mono speaker, crippled USB-C transfer speed, lack luster battery and now antenna/modem issues. Well if you want nothing then everything is an add-on or dongle. /s 😝
CarlJ
Contributor
Yep! Oh, by the way, Apple will be calling you tomorrow, just to check in and see how things are going.
Don't think it is a widespread issue. However hope that Apple will continue with extensive testing before these chips are used in more devices.
Put down the Kool-aid. I never claimed companies don't have issues (and every company does and usually get patched). The issue is what apple used to have with software and what they are rolling out now. if you can't see how it has gone downhill idk what to tell you.