I believe they have to get around the Qualcomm and Ericsson patents on 4G and 5G modem technology.
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Apple's Rumored 5G Modem for iPhones Has Suppliers Competing for Orders
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We already know the answer to this question: It'll perform worse. Apple is developing their own connectivity solution purely to cut costs, not to increase performance. That's why they plan on introducing it in the low-end iPhone, too.
The old Intel modem team, which Apple acquired, never even shipped a working 5G modem. Qualcomm had three generations of product in market by that point. We know how this is going to end... same way it did on the iPhone X, which sourced Qualcomm modems for the Verizon / Sprint iPhone SKUs, and Intel modems for the AT&T / T-Mobile SKUs. The Intel modems performed worse, and Apple artificially limited performance of the Qualcomm modem in order to achieve parity.
This is Tim Cook's Apple. Squeezing the supply chain to wring the most profit out of existing product lines. Very little real product innovation... just iterative designs and reducing costs, wherever possible.
Making a cellular modem probably isn't difficult, making the best cellular modem in the world is probably difficult when competing with a large experienced company who spends 100% of their R&D on the technology
I hope they optimize on efficiency. I don't care if it has a slower max speed that most people never use anyway.
It can but it wont. The cost is very huge. 3nm is for chip only and other use less fabrication. And the advantage isnt that obvious like chip.
Exactly. Lucky to get 100 mbps. Don’t need some thing that gets gigabits.
Part of the problem is Qualcomm has patented a lot of the technologies that go into a modem.
Real world testing with so many variables (nature, buildings, various configurations from thousands of carriers around the world) is difficult. Add on that each countries have different regulations on frequencies and bands. See antennagate. And that's just for the antenna design.
Apple hired Qualcomm’s chief design engineer a couple years ago. Why can’t Apple just buy Qualcomm or invest in building there own Apple cell network fully optimized for the iPhone with no dead zones. I heard before the iPhone was released that Steve Jobs wanted his own cell network. If Apple can spend billions on LEO (low earth orbit) satellites 📡 🛰️ for emergency situations, then why can’t they build there own cell network and cell modem?
Just like the old intel modem, it probably won’t have the same max speed as Qualcomm’s. And probably no mmWave support yet as well. So rather than neutering Qualcomm’s to achieve parity, better to just use it on the entry model. Also serves well as testing ground, where complaints can be deferred easier by telling the less premium customers “you’re using it wrong.” 😉
They patented a lot of CDMA technology which is making it hard for Apple to get around. I feel they will come up with a solution as they hired Qualcomm chief design engineer a couple years ago. Apple just takes talent from Qualcomm, I don’t know why they can’t just buy them. Qualcomm doesn’t have patents on 6G like they do with CDMA 5G, but 6G is likely 7 years away at minimum
Buy Qualcomm? 😅 That will trigger a lot of government scrutiny.
Building own cell network? That’s really high fixed cost. And worldwide coverage? Apple doesn’t even make their own products, outsourcing all their manufacturing to other companies. That’s why they can have so high margins. Apple is not interested in high cost low margin business. They don’t even want to make their own TVs.
Elon Musk built his own global internet network with Starlink so why can’t Apple a trillion dollar company do it?
Steve Jobs was about making the best most revolutionary quality product ever Tim Cook is all about profit margins and making shareholders happy. I liked Apple run Steve Jobs better.
Steve Jobs would’ve just bought Qualcomm and not cared about how much it cost. If he wanted it in-house then darnit it was gonna be in-house
Because Tim Cook is no Elon Musk. Tim Cook is laser focused on high margins and profits, while Elon bought Twitter…. 🤭
You’d have to come up with new intellectual property that doesn’t infringe on existing patents. Pretty hard to do and that’s why it’s taking so long. Apple buying Intel modem chips certainly helped. The purchase in 2019 gained them 17k patents. And if you remember, iPhones with Intel modems were not as good as those with Qualcomm.
Apple buys Intel's smartphone modem division for $1 billion
Apple is paying $1 billion to Intel for the chipmaker's smartphone modem division in a deal driven by the upcoming transition to 5G wireless technology.
www.latimes.com
Not to mention Elon owns the rockets to send them into space! Anyone else would have to lease space driving up costs
I’m curious, is cutting costs now a bad thing? I’m fairly sure that’s how business is supposed to work. I do agree Apple’s modem going into the low end iPhone would indicate it’s not going to be blazing fast. But if I’m going to start making my own version of an already mature product, most likely I’m going to test the water before I jump in with both feet.
And the Tim Cook stuff is getting old. He’s doing an incredible job of running the company. And that is what a CEO does. They run the company. Tim’s not in the lab innovating, that isn’t his job. The CEO of Coca Cola isn’t mixing up new recipes, or finding innovative new ways to sell sodas. Not their job. Their job is to make the company as profitable as they can. I promise you most companies would love to have Tim on their leadership team. His supply chain prowess is unmatched and it’s helped lead to a $2 trillion valuation!
The real issue isn’t Apple or anyone failing to innovate, it’s this generations short attention span. 30 second TikTok videos have lead to the thinking that innovation happens every 30 seconds as well. There is an inability to look at history and see how long tech progress can take. How long did it take before LED TVs took over from CRT? Decades! Innovation in tech is incremental. That’s how it works. Giant leaps come infrequently and almost always on the backs of incremental progress over time. Be patient. The next big leap for personal computing will be true AR glasses. Probably at least 5 years out.
Beg to differ. I grew up with Apple and the 1997-2005 Steve Jobs era was absolutely busting with innovation at every single MacWorld, WWDC, and every other Apple event. The pace of innovation was staggering. G3/G4/G5 processors and some of the most iconic industrial designs ever created. Mac OS X, iPod, later iOS with iPhone and iPad. Then... Steve died.
What's Tim done since taking over? Apple Watch? Big whoop. The trash can Mac Pro? *puke*
We all know AR is next. No kidding. But it's not because Tim is an innovator. He's Apple's caretaker.
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