If this is true, the C2 is looking like the real deal modem. Along with data that will be collected on the 16E C1, the trends must already we very favorable putting this 2nd gen. in a Pro model.
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Apple's C2 Modem Expected to Feature in Next Year's iPhone 18 Pro
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What you also need to ask is HOW many bash the C1 due to the lack of mmWave.
Let me tell you 99% of the iPhone users either:
1. Don’t know what that is and don’t care
2. Don’t care
3. Don’t use it or have a plan with this available and don’t care
4. Are not in US so useless
5. Doesn’t make a difference
6. Are not in macrumors
Once you realise these points all the criticism regarding lack of mmWave becomes irrelevant.
But let me clarify that with this statement I am not saying that the C1 is better or worse, it is yet to be seen what is the real world performance for us to really get an idea of this chip.
But I doubt Apple has put a buggy connectivity chip in an iPhone, because that would render it 100% useless.
Hi my friend, power saving due to lack of mmWave although has a direct correlation if active, it is not actually how they would do it.
Take into account non-US iPhones, they don’t have mmWave and they don’t have better battery life in comparison to US ones. So the Qualcomm chip is not really more power efficient, so mmWave is not the variable.
They could be in the same chip, but they're almost always separate because:
1) Wifi/Bluetooth operate on the same frequency (2.4GHz)
2) Modems (2G/3G/4G/5G) requires more complex circuitry to handle the radio traffic
3) Modems have quite a different power requirement and thus require a different power management to be efficient
4) Production yield. It's harder do produce complex silicon and modems are more complex. Combining them would cause lower yield because they would have to through out both Wifi/Bluetooth and the modem if a chips was bad.
This makes it easier to have the modem on one chip and Wifi/Bluetooth on another. These two chips are then integrated into the same SoC.
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Interesting -- thanks for the insight! I had no idea that Qualcomm had produced separate chips without mmWave for other regions; I would have assumed they leveraged manufacturing efficiencies by including it in the hardware but ignoring it in software/firmware. (There is precedence; companies have done this for years.)
I think C2 will be the radio modem chip that ends up on all iPhone 18 models. There's still a question of whether Apple is willing to put the C1 on the iPhone 17 Air for battery usage saving reasons, since the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro/Pro Max have the space to accommodate the Qualcomm Snapdragon X80 radio modem chip.
No problem! But let me clarify, I am not saying Qualcomm does 2 separate chips, although it is probable there are different chips for different regions since there are different band wavelengths between countries/continent.
But in regards to mmWave I don’t know if there are 2 sub-versions of it, one with and one without, or is the same one with the feature disabled (since no antenna).
However regardless of either, the chip (or chips) don’t have a difference in power usage that can be measured and impacting battery life directly for a user. So basically 5G is already impactful and mmWave is probably similar anyways. (Basically 5G is max power and mmWave is similar)
I am not an electrical Engineer so that’s why I wanted to clarify that fact that I don’t know the technical aspects of the inner workings this.
And they will pass all the savings on to you!
Wait, nope, no they won't, they'll raise the price at the same time.
Wait, nope, no they won't, they'll raise the price at the same time.
Don't think it's because of the lack of mmWave . iPhone 13 Pro in Europe didn't have it I think, and yet the battery was the same
My bet is Qualcomm. They aren't going backwards, removing mmWave from 17 Pro. It's OK for 16e or 17 Air tho.
Right; and as you may (or may not) have observed from other responses to my earlier post and my subsequent post, the remaining question is: did Qualcomm actually produce separate chips for that market without support for mmWave, or did they simply snip the antenna from that portion of the silicon and ignore any inputs coming from it? (I kind'a suspect the latter, as in that case, I believe we could reasonably expect power usage to remain consistent, exactly as you and others have observed.)
I'm no expert on the matter and I'm unsure if we will ever have a definitive answer to the question from someone who is... but regardless, I'm sure I'm not the only one who is keenly interested in learning how Apple manages it, in their upcoming C2 and C3 chips.