Some folks keep saying that about the Apple Car too. ( Billions into something that likely won't see light of day.)
There are far better odds for the modem than the car..... but it isn't a sure thing either.
So you believe they are investing a lot of money and resources developing their modem only to likely abandon it?
The ole MR 'claim you said something you never said ' defense.
' Better odds for the modem than the car ' means the odds for the modem getting done is higher than the car. That is actually the opposite direction from 'likely abandon' because the odds for not doing it are relatively much smaller. ( not getting bigger as you claim. )
The money Apple has spent is a sunk costs. Just because you sunk costs are high doesn't mean that the probability goes up. Sometimes it is better not to keep throwing money into a pit that isn't going to pay off.
Apple got up on stage to talked to AirPower concept. Rumors here on this site says they even got to point they had printed up boxes to put the product into. .... And it never shipped.
Apple can walk away from a $2B hole in the ground and it won't be a major disaster for them. They are not trying to do that, but if there better ways to spend a limited set of funds... there are other more strategic issues they may pursue.
Who says that the complexities and difficulties involved in making modems are a deterrent for Apple?
They are deterrent for everyone. The handwaving being done here is the Apple walks-on-water and nothing is any hindrance to them ever. That is smoke.
Market conditions change. In 2019 when Apple bought the Intel modem business.
1. iPhone sales were going up year over year.... not down.
2. The Chinese government was not banning iPhones in their offices and casting 'shade' on them elsewhere in China.
3. The EU was not about to push major disruptions to their bundled apps and App store revenues.
4. Most vendors were not doing 3D packaging of chiplets into packages at modestly high volumes.
There was no standard interface between chiplets ( like UCIe ).
5. Arm wasn't pushing Qualcomm toward higher decoupling between their IP and Qualcomms modem .
6. Interest were so low it is an effective tax shelter to borrow all the money to pay dividends and just horde more cash on the books to pump the stock price higher.
7. Siri looked like competitive AI.
8. Intel/AMD/Nvidia had relatively less completive products than the do now.
9. The real additional silicon R&D ( R1 and follow on work ) costs for the augment relatively headset hand no been fully realized.
10. Apple was hiring contractors instead of laying them off. ( and didn't have dozens of individual unions to negotiate with).
In 2-3 years pretty good chance Qualcomm has a standard chiplet die can toss into a package that meets most low power objectives and works with the lastest standards. If standard way of intergrating chiplets from different fab processes then don't have to buy everything 'in house'. [ Even if Apple doesn't. Google. Samsung, etc call all get major blocks made by best in category vendor ( e.g., MediaTek+Nvidia GPU+Qualcomm modem. )
The level of competition across the whole silicon scope Apple is engadget with is likely going to be better , not worse over time.
You know what, don't stress about it. As I said, it's only a matter of time.
' Eventually' is a problem that pushes down the probability of them pulling this off. You can try to hand wave around it , but reality ...
Qualcomm is doing such a 'bad job' of delivering the technical goods that Apple just signed up for three more years.
https://www.macrumors.com/2023/09/11/apple-extends-deal-with-qualcomm-as-modem-delayed/
(i.e., what Qualcomm is making is totally viable as a modem subsystem. )
All Qualcomm has to do here is lower their prices to a level that Apple considers acceptable and the 'game' is largely over at that point. It wasn't a technical problem as the core issue here. It was pricing.
There are some techincal challeges of doing high end 3D chiplet packaging at iPhone like volumes. But there is also lots of money and effort being thrown and cranking up the volume. Don't really need it right away. That is a core issue. If wait for technology to change over 10 years lots of things that didn't look possible... get possible.
Is the Apple modem 'doomed' ? No. Is it an inevitable , 'sure thing' ? Also no.
