"The Cupertino company..." - dreadful breathless-style "journalism". Why not just say Apple?
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Apple's In-House 5G Modem Work Faces Further Delays
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Apples product portfolio is swelling like crazy nowadays. When will we see a new printer?
Because Qualcomm already have a lot of patents toward modem and therefore, it's quite difficult to make it without their patents. Which means, Apple has to make a whole new modem without infringing Qualcomm's patent.
Mostly it's due to the ten trillion patents that Qualcomm has and Apple has to figure out a way to do it themselves without infringing on any of them. They're kind of having to reinvent the wheel at this point. Qualcomm has been at this for a very long time.
Patent law is weird to me, there's very likely only a handful of engineering strategies in the world to make a good 5G chip. But because Qualcomm has a patent armory, they get basically a monopoly in 5G chip production? I don't care about Apple saving money really, but one company having a virtual monopoly in this space is terrible for everyone.
You would have to think someone from Qualcomm at this point has been at a meeting with Tim and said why they are the best modem chip on the market today is because at Qualcomm they are constantly innovating. Surely someone has done that.
Nope, anti-trust would never allow it.
Apple would have to get the approval of each of the countries it operates in, similar to the way ARM couldn't sell itself to NVIDIA because China did not approve it.
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Patents aren't the issue. Intel already came out with a 5G modem, it just wasn't good. MediaTek has one, it isn't good. Apple already bought out all of Intel's 5G patents.
There is zero chance of making a modem without licensing Qualcomm patents. Nobody is trying to do a clean sheet design because it's impossible.
Even Qualcomm isn't the best. Huawei's modem can do satellite voice and SMS today. You need loads of engineers, not just money.
Don't understand either.
Maybe it's challenging to make 5G look good ? It's probably the most underwhelming techs of today.
Competition is good, especially for consumers. Having monopolies as history has shown is not a good thing. Too many examples to cite. So I hope Apple sticks to its guns. They obviously have the money to see it through, so here is to competition.
People saying “just buy Qualcomm” as if that wouldn’t get blocked by the government lol. Qualcomm is a direct competitor to Apple’s AR/VR ambitions due to them making chips for Meta and other players in the space. And even then, I’m pretty sure Meta would try their best to stop it considering they aren’t on the best terms with Apple
You know, I expected to elicit more of a chuckle from this one. Alas, it seems like the MacRumors audience probably isn’t all that familiar with 90s Apple lore these days. Granted, it has been 30 years ago now (and I feel old now), but it does seem like Mac OS Classic and the PPC era (let alone the 68k era) and even the G3, G4, and G5 era are more and more forgotten outside of Apple-specific retro computing communities. Maybe I should revisit the 68k MLA forums…
To explain the joke, apparently the code name for the Power Macintosh 7100 (one of the first generation PPC Macs) was Carl Sagan, until Carl Sagan objected and sued. The engineers then changed the code name to BHA (which stood for “Butt Headed Astronomer”), so he sued again. They finally settled on LAW (“Lawyers Are Wimps”). Lawyers Are Wimps might simultaneously be a reference to the Apple Corps vs Apple Computer cases, which is the source of the Sosumi (meaning “so, sue me”) system sound that was only recently retired.
1. External monitor bugs when using laptops on events. Even Apple dongles have bugs.
2. Ventura and Sonoma killed mission critical software.
3. Screen time settings still have issues where it randomly turns off content controls for kids.
Here's a few more:
4. Settings in Ventura and Sonoma are changed and they took a very easy and intuitive System settings and make it extremely difficult. Just how hard it was to find the setting to turn off Handoff. Why is this even on default?
5. iOS update nearly killed vibrate settings.
6. Siri is now totally unusable and unreliable.
7. Menu bar settings randomly disappear (sound settings, screen settings, etc.)
8. When using certain full screen applications, if the computer goes to sleep, the program needs to force quit or you have to restart the computer.
9. Rainbow ball for no reason at all.
10. Have to restart computer for no reason, randomly, to fix basic issues.
I could go on but I need to get back to work.
Apple likes to own the entire stack and this is a critical technology. The pains of developing this modem will be worth it in the end.
Apple no doubt went through difficult learning and R&D with developing their own silicon, but the modem is being done with public knowledge of the project. The M1 chip was ready when it was ready and we found out about it when they were ready to unveil it. The modem is being developed under pressure. Had we never heard about Apple acquiring Intel's unfinished modem, we'd all just be pleasantly surprised in a few years.
Apple no doubt went through difficult learning and R&D with developing their own silicon, but the modem is being done with public knowledge of the project. The M1 chip was ready when it was ready and we found out about it when they were ready to unveil it. The modem is being developed under pressure. Had we never heard about Apple acquiring Intel's unfinished modem, we'd all just be pleasantly surprised in a few years.
Exactly. Especially for the pathetic small amount of money Apple is currently paying Qualcomm for the best Modem.
But then this is Macrumors. For years they have shown zero understanding in hardware technology and obviously difficulties in RF engineering.
We knew about Apple Silicon in 2018. M1 launched two years later.
Apple bought Intel's 5G modem business in 2019. It's four years and counting. Five if you consider Apple has put cellular job postings since 2018.
Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs From 2020, Replacing Intel
Apple Inc. is planning to use its own chips in Mac computers beginning as early as 2020, replacing processors from Intel Corp., according to people familiar with the plans.
www.bloomberg.com