I used an Xs for 10 days and could get signal everywhere just fine, like my X does.
And I don't care how good Qualcomm's chipset is. The moment they start playing games, they are out. Kudos to Apple for taking the business somewhere else and not dealing/being intimidated by these crocks. And I believe it would be a matter of time before Apple makes it's own in house modems.
Well I don’t know if you tested anywhere in circumstances that would show up the difference between a current Qualcomm modem and the Intel ones in the X and XS. But in some kinds of buildings and along certain commutes, there is a difference. As a customer, I DO care how good the modem chipset is. The fewer places I risk getting stuck without a signal the better. You’re thinking like an Apple investor and not like a customer.
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This is not an important point to make but I’ll make it anyway: I don’t see how Qualcomm are any worse crooks than Apple, given some of the lawsuits and accusations I’ve seen leveled at Apple over the years on this forum.
Let’s not even get started on all the business Apple does with countries whose laws go against everything Apple is purported to stand for. That’s a bit of a tangent but I mention it to illustrate that they are all businesses out to maximize every dime they can get out of each other and their customers. None of them is a virtuous innocent.
I can see rooting for Apple over Qualcomm if you think it will result in prices coming down for us customers once Qualcomm’s “monopolistic” practice is ground to a halt. But so far Apple if Apple has passed along any savings as a result of switching to Intel and withholding payments to Qualcomm, well I certainly can’t tell.
My Xr performs well enough for my usual day’s demands. I got it for a good price. I’m happy being able to switch between it and my Android phones whenever I want or need to.
But at some point when my circumstances change, I do have to choose one, so I do hope Apple does come out with its own modem or makes Intel modems become better than Qualcomm modems.
A huge factor in my final choice will come down to which platform and which company offerse the best connectivity because that is for me, the value in a handheld computer/phone, its ability to smoothly connect me to others via voice, video and text.
Each year that passes, my family loses more and more of that Apple ecosystem, because either Apple itself decides to abandon a product or they make it a poor value for the money compared to the competition. I don’t want to see this happen with iPhones.
I like iPhones, but their relatively poor connectivity has been a thorn in my side for awhile now. I do not live in a city with good signal everywhere. I am out where there’s cows along the road and a lot of my commute is through areas of poor signal. My husband does work in a city and in thick concrete buildings and he needs a good modem, too.
