Barclays: There's Still a 'Good Chance' Apple Will Have to Use Qualcomm 5G Modems in 2020 iPhones

Just a reminder, even if Apple made peace with Qualcomm and settle out of court. Qualcomm simply doesn't have a 5G modem design on hand that fits Apple. The current X50 requires an additional 4G Modem to work along side it. Unless Qualcomm announce an All in One 5G solution within the next few weeks, the chance of that Qualcomm 5G iPhone is something next to impossible.
 
alexnyc8 said:
This whole 5G thing is the greatest experiment on people... according to quite a few researches constant bombardment by high frequency microwaves (which is what 5G is) is going to have health effects (key word is constant bombardment by very high frequency EMF (tens of gigahertz, 24/7).
Looks like the only beneficiaries of this will be big brother (as this will enable all kind of spooks wet dream - constant high resolution real time surveillance over just about everything), and ofcourse big telecom who will love to sell you "5gee betta den 4 gee".
https://eluxemagazine.com/magazine/dangers-of-5g/ (But just search 5G dangers, there is plenty of evidence and a lot of it by scientific and medical communities - ofcourse the benefactors will always say its not true)
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I'm not sure it's a real danger. But I don't want to "be smarter afterwards" either. So thank you for your post.
I also think that on mobile you don't need something so ultra-fast at all, so its just to create an artificial market here again, which everyone is chasing for the time being. "Emperor's new clothes".
And: The market for perfect mobile phones might gradually be saturated.

Apple should finally develop new products. Augmented Glasses, hearing aids with 3D spatial perception, health electronics, automotive, etc... iPhones are fully developed. As already noticeable in the last generations. Their upcoming "new" gadgets will be boring (5G, 6G... number madness similar to screen size) and just expensive.

If the iPhone will be utilized as a 5G transmitter to AppleGlasses, I might understand. Otherwise, it's B#.
 
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themick4u said:
Apple, develop their own modems. and stop using Intel modems. These clearly are problematic time and time again.
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There is nothing clear about that statement. You are just talking about the anecdotal remarks about reception for the new devices.

We don’t know the extent of that problem, how many were impacted, or if there was even an issue.
 
nepalisherpa said:
Apple needs to hurry up and design their own modem.
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Easier said than done. They are definitely working on it, but if the FTC wins against Qualcomm, that will be the first in a series of moves that will allow Apple as well as Samsung, Huawei, etc to work on developing their own modems.
 
Apple needs to design its own modems... and then license them for next to nothing to anyone that wants to use them in their phones. That'll end Qualcomm pretty quickly.
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heov said:
Apple can't just make a modem overnight. It takes time and money.

Cost of iPhone will likely go up if Apple has to spend billions on R&D to make their own... costing more than paying Qualcomms fee.

If it was cost effective to build their own modem, they'd do it. Apple is all about that green.
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The upfront R&D cost will eventually be made up for by being able to make their own modems cheaper.
 
HacKage said:
Considering the cost of the iPhone, they should just bury the hatchet and put in the Qualcomm modems at the price agreed. Pay what you owe, and give people the best performance available. Don't throttle Qualcomm modems to be equal to inferior Intel units. If it costs an extra $10-20 per handset, that is nothing compared to the cost of the phone.

Many competitors have the best Qualcomm modems in phones that cost half the price.
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That's not really the point...Qualcomm's business practices are illegal. They have a stranglehold on the baseband market and they're abusing their position to line their pockets. Your comment is exactly what Qualcomm relies on: "we'll do whatever we want to make as much money as possible, and nobody will sue us because if they do we'll just stop giving them our modems."

So your solution is to just give up and bend over?
 
alexnyc8 said:
This whole 5G thing is the greatest experiment on people... according to quite a few researches constant bombardment by high frequency microwaves (which is what 5G is) is going to have health effects (key word is constant bombardment by very high frequency EMF (tens of gigahertz, 24/7).
Looks like the only beneficiaries of this will be big brother (as this will enable all kind of spooks wet dream - constant high resolution real time surveillance over just about everything), and ofcourse big telecom who will love to sell you "5gee betta den 4 gee".
https://eluxemagazine.com/magazine/dangers-of-5g/ (But just search 5G dangers, there is plenty of evidence and a lot of it by scientific and medical communities - ofcourse the benefactors will always say its not true)
Click to expand...

LOL, Sprint's 2.5 GHz spectrum can't penetrate a paper bag, and you expect mmW spectrum in 28 GHz, 39 GHz, and even higher frequencies to penetrate skin? And if your sources are "Environmental Health Trust", then you should reconsider where you get your news. That entire article is so backwards it had me rolling laughing. "Short span satellites" LMFAO
 
Is 5G a big deal for 2020? I mean what happens if they release the 5G iphone in 2021?
Do consumers care that much that about it that it will sway their purchase?
Personally, unless 5G becomes widespread (where i can actually use it daily) by 2020, it wouldn't be at the top of my priority list.
Also, if Intel, Samsung, Mediatek are alternatives, can Apple go with one of those companies as a supplier for 2020?
 
Wide opeN said:
Once Apple designs their own modem, it's going to be game over!!!
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Game over since iPhones will just be iPods with even worse reception and throughput than Intel. Do you think it's easy? Broadcom, for example, gave up after trying for decades.
 
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I'm not too worried about which modem Apple uses. 5G modems should provide more than enough speed. It's more about how well the networks can provide high speeds. A 100mb land connection can provide up to four 4K streams from Netflix. Theoretically 4G LTE should be instant on our phones let alone 5G.

ilikewhey said:
mediatek...thats rather low on the totem pole
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Given that Mediatek's Market Cap is higher than Samsung and Qualcomm combined. They can't be that low on the totem pole. In the SoC arena.

Actually, I had no idea Mediatek was so valuable or how big they are. Until I looked all them up on Yahoo Finance. I figured they were some small fry.

It would be interesting to see how all the modems compare.
 
mi7chy said:
Game over since iPhones will just be iPods with even worse reception and throughput than Intel. Do you think it's easy? Broadcom, for example, gave up after trying for decades.
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They said the same thing before Apple started designing its own CPUs.
 
alexnyc8 said:
This whole 5G thing is the greatest experiment on people... according to quite a few researches constant bombardment by high frequency microwaves (which is what 5G is) is going to have health effects (key word is constant bombardment by very high frequency EMF (tens of gigahertz, 24/7).
Looks like the only beneficiaries of this will be big brother (as this will enable all kind of spooks wet dream - constant high resolution real time surveillance over just about everything), and ofcourse big telecom who will love to sell you "5gee betta den 4 gee".
https://eluxemagazine.com/magazine/dangers-of-5g/ (But just search 5G dangers, there is plenty of evidence and a lot of it by scientific and medical communities - ofcourse the benefactors will always say its not true)
Click to expand...

Well if Apple can make people pay to strap a battery device on their wrists which generates radiation, these consumers will clap 5G.
 
mikethemartian said:
A contract is a “meeting of the minds”. When you have attorneys from two large companies hammer out a contract everything in it, unless it contradicts the law, is enforceable. In contrast when you have a contract prewritten (contract of adhesion) by just one side as you would between a store and a consumer not every part of it can be enforced against the consumer since there was never a “meeting of the minds”.
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I agree with what you say, but FRAND clouds the issue quite a bit. Companies using Qualcomm tech (and this includes all the phone makers, not just Apple) are and have been sort of forced into contracts that they do not feel are fair. There wasn't a true "meeting of the minds" to borrow your phrase, they just didn't have any choice. And society has decided that tech that falls under FRAND regulations is considered essential and beneficial to society. So its interests extend beyond just the two parties to the contract.
 
Is apple smart enough to build their own modem? I question their QA capabity.
[doublepost=1547756138][/doublepost]It doesn’t
ksec said:
Just a reminder, even if Apple made peace with Qualcomm and settle out of court. Qualcomm simply doesn't have a 5G modem design on hand that fits Apple. The current X50 requires an additional 4G Modem to work along side it. Unless Qualcomm announce an All in One 5G solution within the next few weeks, the chance of that Qualcomm 5G iPhone is something next to impossible.
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matter. If apple made peace..and go back to business “friends,” iphones would have better connectivity than intel.
 
If Apple could go back in time, they could have bought Motorola and been producing their own radios for the past 6 years.
 
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