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iPhone 13 Lineup Expected to Use Qualcomm's Snapdragon X60 Modem With Several 5G Improvements
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We're on VZW and saw no noticable difference between 4G LTE and 5G around here. If anything, 5G underperformed. We've turned off 5G on our iPhone 12's...
1950s phones sounded FAR FAR better. Non compressed, essentially zero latency. Phone calls were a pleasure and society was better for it. The last generation of analog cellular phones in the early 2000s were even better... almost better than being in the room as they also had no latency but up to 12,000 Hz frequency response.
Today phone calls are a chore, one of the main reasons texting took over - better than saying “what” all the time.
Sigh
Phones these days support HD Voice+ on LTE which sounds great. However, there are a few snags: 1) sometimes networks don't support it between competing carriers and 2) if you are in an area with poor signal the phone might have to fall back to a poorer low-bandwidth codec.
My carrier in Canada made an agreement with the other carriers last year and suddenly cross network conversations became crystal clear.
Having said that, yes FaceTime sound quality is spectacular, I use FaceTime Audio as well.
We don't know yet how the screen power draw will be, it supports dynamic refresh rate from 1Hz to 120Hz like on the Apple Watch which is potentially a great power saver.
FaceTime audio and VoLTE are almost similar in quality. Basically if you have TMobile and call another TMobile user you’ll connect under VoLTE with its higher quality as long as both are in LTE zones.
Why would you say that? Apple bought the Intel modem team, and they weren't even able to make a working 5G modem, much less one that supports mmWave. I get that we all love Apple, but it would be an inferior part to the Qualcomm X60.
Do you remember the iPhone X launch, where Apple used Intel modems for AT&T and T-Mobile, while using Qualcomm modems for Verizon and Sprint? Apple intentionally gimped the Verizon and Sprint phones so they all had equal download speeds, because the Intel modems could not keep up. I don't think any of us want to be force-fed inferior modems again.
Qualcomm is practically a patent company, so likely they would use their patents in some capacity for an Apple in-house 5G modem considering both of them can break bread at the table now. I wouldn't use the Intel dillemma being the same this go around now that Apple is in the drivers seat.
I imagine the costs would go down quite a bit to rent their patent portfolio instead of having Samsung make their Snapdragon chips for Apple.
I think the main issue is, people don’t talk to the phone like it’s meant to be. To make point: I used my hands free in my car the other day (which I have not had any issues with) to talk to my aunt. She keeps her phone on speaker mode, but then looks all over the place when talking, so her voice isn’t projected at the phone and it kept going up and down in volume making it hard to hear and understand.
Sounds like a carrier/structural issue more than anything a phone can fix.
Does your carrier support WiFi Calling and is it enabled? The buildings I work in block nearly all cellular signal but I'm able to call via WiFi and I think send and receive txt messages (not sure on that, haven't paid that much attention).
Alternatively, if you get better cell reception outside your home look at something like a weBoost that puts an antenna outside your home, uses an amplifier and an antenna inside your home. We've used these at remote cabins and at my parents home (before they were able to get DSL). They make a huge difference.
A number of providers offer cellular access points that can be placed in your home as well.
The X60 modem has some really cool features. Band aggregation as well as true SA 5G + VoNR make this a phone that will last well into the future.
I don't believe the X55 modem can do full SA 5G + VoNR. The band aggregation is the one that will have the most real world performance improvements. Should also help with battery life as it's built on TSMC's 5nm N5 process.
I don't believe the X55 modem can do full SA 5G + VoNR. The band aggregation is the one that will have the most real world performance improvements. Should also help with battery life as it's built on TSMC's 5nm N5 process.
They bought the intel modem business because they wanted to make their own modems. Not because they wanted to put the same crap intel was making into their phones. If they did, they wouldn't have reverted back to Qualcomm. Whenever Apple puts in their own modem, I'd be surprised if it wasn't superior to Qualcomm just like their mobile processors are superior to Qualcomm in every way. Or do we still underestimate the advantages of building the hardware and software in the same building?
Thank you. I thought it was more likely my carrier (which you correctly guessed is Verizon) but I was not completely sure. My phone shows "5G" but I knew not all 5G was created equal. I didn't realize Verizon was trailing T-Mobile. I switched to Verizon about 15 years ago after having bad experiences with Cingular then more bad experiences with AT&T. I finally decided that Verizon was the "least bad" option where I lived and I have been with them ever since.
Qualcomm holds more wireless IP than any other company. That's absolutely true. But it's because they invented it. The licensing business is profitable for the company, but the bulk of its revenue does not come from licensing; it comes from selling mobile processors, modems, internet of things solutions, robotics, connected car systems... Not patent royalties.
You're comparing Apples and Oranges. Developing processors based on a licensed ARM v9 instruction set are one thing. Challenging, yes. But Apple is not unique in its ability to do that. I fully expect Qualcomm will give Apple a run for their money in this area thanks to the Nuvia acquisition, too.
It's an entirely different thing to build a 5G modem, the RF front-end, antenna solutions, and optimizing for all of it. The technological challenge is an order of magnitude greater. Many have tried and died, including the team Apple acquired from Intel to continue the challenge. Apple is trying because they can throw money at the challenge in perpetuity. We'll see how it goes.
That is a very legitimate question and one that I asked myself during a very short debate I had with myself about whether to upgrade from the 11 Pro Max to the 12 Pro Max (I won or lost the debate depending upon your perspective).
LTE allowed me to stream YouTube videos, WebEx meetings and FaceTime calls. Those are the activities that I regularly do that use the most bandwidth and LTE worked fine for those purposes where I live and where I have traveled.
Based on my current iPhone usage, 5G isn't really going to make much difference. I could see it being more useful on a laptop where I sometimes download really large files but I don't do that on my iPhone. Beyond the speed tests, I see 5G as being an enabling technology for new features & apps but not something I really had to have today (I still upgraded my 11 Pro Max to a 12 Pro Max but that decision was more about the camera & Mag Safe than 5G). My big disappointment was that when I was trying to stream YouTube videos on 5G last December the video kept stopping to buffer which never happened when I was on LTE. That is what prompted me to run the speed test on 5G and on average it was about 1/2 the speed of LTE but sometimes it was only about 10% the speed of LTE.
I would say, that's your carrier, not anything to do with the actual phone. It's like that even in a lot of major areas. The carriers are constantly looking to get the customers, but upgrading the infrastructure.
Something like this is essentially a potential spec bump and that's it. Not any real practical use that I can see.
Of course there is more to a new iPhone yearly model than a modem refresh or replacement, but as tempting for me as it was to upgrade my XS Max to a 12 PM, I decided not to because of the X55 modem and the current state of 5G.
Made my mind up that the X60 cleared up my modem concerns and that along with all the other tasty updates to performance display and photography will prompt me to upgrade.
In years past, and for many iPhone cycles, it was a yearly thing for me to go and buy the next new iPhone. The quality and performance of my XS Max has caused a shift in my personal thinking that 2-3 years can suit me just fine.
Made my mind up that the X60 cleared up my modem concerns and that along with all the other tasty updates to performance display and photography will prompt me to upgrade.
In years past, and for many iPhone cycles, it was a yearly thing for me to go and buy the next new iPhone. The quality and performance of my XS Max has caused a shift in my personal thinking that 2-3 years can suit me just fine.
your heavily underestimating qualcomm here, they are MILES ahead in terms of R&D and their modem is their bread and butter, industry experts peg qualcomm to be ahead of the curve for the foresseable future, if and when apple puts out its own modem, they might match Qcomm, but highly doubt superior in anyway.
You mean duplicate the masks?
They don't get to sea a design in a format that makes it easy to steal.
The design is in a language called Verilog. Unless you have the source code, duplicating a modem or most other chips is near impossible.