C2 modem could offer better battery life. However the international models have smaller battery than US eSIM variants. So battery life should remain the same for all models.
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iPhone 18 Pro Could Use Qualcomm Modem in the US and C2 Elsewhere
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Radeon85
macrumors 68000
Or, just drop mmWave, it’s such a pointless technology when it can simply be blocked by a simple text book.
johannnn
macrumors 68030
Is the C2 more energy efficient?
With the 17 series, we Europeans got worse battery life because we got the lame SIM tray
Hopefully, with the 18 series, we can get equal battery life if we get a more energy-efficient modem
With the 17 series, we Europeans got worse battery life because we got the lame SIM tray
Hopefully, with the 18 series, we can get equal battery life if we get a more energy-efficient modem
zarmanto
macrumors 65816
Personally, I doubt it. While Apple has indeed done similar things more than once in the past, I think they learned from that, that it introduces too much confusion for the customers who just don't get technology. "I spent good money on this! What do you mean, this one isn't for Verizon? Isn't it the same as that phone? What the heck are CDMA and LTE, anyway?" (invoke sulking voice...) "I think you're just trying to confuse me, and make me spend more money..."
I could be wrong, of course... but I think partitioning these differences to regional location instead simplifies their production lines, as well as makes life easier for the sales critters in their stores.
mikebenton
macrumors regular
Maybe US mobile companies didn't appreciate the added tracking privacy with C2 🤷♂️
Taq'aix
macrumors 6502
Still very happy with my 14 Pro. The chip still works like a charm 👌 and the phone is built like a tank. Not having to worry about a butter-soft chassis every time it slips out of my hand is… surprisingly therapeutic.
JM
macrumors 601
This is a good reminder of carriers’ strangle hold on iPhone in the US (remember the extra $30 to buy an iPhone unlocked? That was to get around people not having to pay the upgrade fee from the carrier with an unlocked phone and sim swap)
Also, this seems like more support for my theory that the iPhone didn't increase in price because the carriers would not support a several hundred dollar increase in price until a new phone comes out.
Just my theory.
Also, this seems like more support for my theory that the iPhone didn't increase in price because the carriers would not support a several hundred dollar increase in price until a new phone comes out.
Just my theory.
jayducharme
macrumors 603
So am I. I'd rather trade off slightly faster downloads for better battery life.
It's not really about better speeds, but about functional service. The issue in most areas with poor cell edge RSRP isn't that speeds are slower but acceptable, but that data service becomes entirely nonfunctional.
Assuming that a C2 baseband would actually get meaningfully better battery life, that does no good if you're in an area where a Qualcomm baseband would work and a C2 would not.
I don't think you do get it. You think cellular internet is just used on phones? How about laptops with WWAN moving real data? I want the fastest. How about WIFI hotspots that use 5G technology to power internet in homes and businesses? Again, the faster the better.
I also wish you'd actually back up your statement with some sort of support, in particular, why mmWave 5G is "dead end technology".
"Better Battery Life" -- the mantra of a group of digital nomads that apparently are never around an outlet and have no clue what a power bank is. Between my office, my home and my car, I can always top-off the battery if needed (which it never is).
fortunately, I don't hold text books up to my iPhone when I'm using it! I do know the mmWave 5G tower up the street manages to get through our roof and walls and gives us super fast cellular IN the house. Maybe because our walls aren't filled with text books. 😉
This right here. One of the biggest disappointments on the cellular front in recent years has been Apple dropping mmWave from iPad Pros. I understand on the base model and Air, but the Pros really should be the best-of-the-best tech for a premium price. The price is still premium, but they still omit technologies that make the iPad Pro a computing powerhouse on the go.
Likewise, people have had their opinions of mmWave shaped by misconceptions and bad marketing. mmWave has been promoted with attention-grabbing screenshots of multi-gig speed tests, but its real value is in dense venues like stadiums and arenas. The difference between a legacy sub-6-only DAS that can't adequately deal with poor UL/reverse path SNR compared to 800 MHz of mmWave and its attenuating properties are night and day, and make it a perfect fit for facilities holding tens of thousands of people simultaneously trying to share pictures and videos, communicate while separated from each other at concession stands or walking around various hallways. It's not about one user pulling 4 Gbps down. It's about thousands of users served by a mmWave-enabled DAS pulling 50 or 100 Mbps and experiencing reliable, usable service in situations when legacy technologies would perform poorly or outright be unable to service those users.
Yes, Verizon is probably most guilty of promoting mmWave in a way that isn't extraordinarily practical, but they're also the carrier who has invested the most in outfitting more venues with mmWave than just about anybody in the world. (And I don't say this as a Verizon fan -- I don't even use them as a primary carrier anymore.) But the technology itself is just one piece of a larger cellular layer cake that includes FR1 low bands plus FDD and TDD mid bands, and FR2/mmWave.
Char Aznable
macrumors newbie
Considering the Apple chip will be available in Europe I wouldn't even be trading anything.
Just gaining better battery life.
Well this would suck. The C2 would help immensely with battery life compared to the Qualcomm chips we've had in years past. I hope this ends up not being true.
Graphate
macrumors regular
John Gruber, it’s not quite like a car that can go 300mph. Transfer speeds have a practical use case for many categories of people.
I suppose his point might be theoretical difference between 300 - 400 is, in practice, a near trivial difference.
And I for one care more about latency above 50.
I suppose his point might be theoretical difference between 300 - 400 is, in practice, a near trivial difference.
And I for one care more about latency above 50.
appleCakes
macrumors regular
If Apple is going to stick with Qualcomm for the 18 Pro/Max then I want it to be at least the X85 modem. At the end of the day, I’ll be satisfied enough if the 18 Pro’s battery life is improved markedly regardless of which modem is used. As in battery life at least as good as in my 16 Plus. If not, then no iPhone purchase for me.
The ONLY benefit of Qualcomm is a band that’s used in stadiums. Which doesn’t even affect the majority of users in the areas where those stadiums exist. The benefit of Apple’s modems is that you can actually get a connection in very many places where Qualcomm gives up. As the vast majority of cellular customers in the US are rarely in stadiums but DO often find themselves in areas with weak signals, I’m thinking the preference would always be Apple Modems.
This was not information Apple was “concerned” about getting out. 😀
This was not information Apple was “concerned” about getting out. 😀
As someone who owns an iPhone 16 Pro Max 512GB Black Titanium, I will be glad to hold onto this phone for another two years, maybe 4
Gruber is missing the boat with how network connections work. In an age of increasing connectivity—by necessity—the faster a connection can be, the better in the end for everyone. The sooner someone frees up their network usage, the more bandwidth is available for everyone else.
Much of the overhead of downloading content is not in the bulk "transfer" stage, but the process of negotiating the connection, establishing encryption, etc. — all before the transfer itself begins.
1. Connect.
2. Transfer.
3. Disconnect.
If mmWave allows that Connect stage to be twice as fast, for example, that's a huge boon to overall network and bandwidth optimization.
There is an increasing trend of "always-on" network connections where the Connect and Disconnect steps only happen once during a stable connection, with many Transfers happening in between. In that case, the sooner the Transfer can complete, again, the better for network optimization.
You can't really judge efficiency of the network by how quickly a website *perceives* to load. That's just human-scale perception, not network-level efficiency.
Much of the overhead of downloading content is not in the bulk "transfer" stage, but the process of negotiating the connection, establishing encryption, etc. — all before the transfer itself begins.
1. Connect.
2. Transfer.
3. Disconnect.
If mmWave allows that Connect stage to be twice as fast, for example, that's a huge boon to overall network and bandwidth optimization.
There is an increasing trend of "always-on" network connections where the Connect and Disconnect steps only happen once during a stable connection, with many Transfers happening in between. In that case, the sooner the Transfer can complete, again, the better for network optimization.
You can't really judge efficiency of the network by how quickly a website *perceives* to load. That's just human-scale perception, not network-level efficiency.
That's not a fault of LTE itself, but T-Mobile overloading the network. You may have 2 or 3 bars of signal strength, but it's meaningless if data can't get through the network as fast as the technology supports. Put pressure on T-Mobile to better optimize their towers and networks.
Gengar
macrumors 65816
Nah. It’s handy at crowded events. I went to a Bruno Mars concert in Nashville back in May and T-Mobile’s data just completely quit working when the stadium filled. My secondary line on Verizon had mmWave though, and still worked just fine. I believe AT&T and Verizon have mmWave at Nissan Stadium, while T-Mobile only has midband 5G.