Apple is discontinuing in-house modem development after several unsuccessful attempts to perfect its own custom 5G modem chip, according to...
  • rootbeerdan@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    It’s more likely they’re just partially shutting down some of their modem development and focusing on beyond 5G, since people really have no idea how many years something like this can actually take, they might not expect it to be ready until 6G rolls around in 2030. iPhones themselves are usually finalized 2-3 years before they are even announced, we weren’t going to see anything until 2027 at the earliest anyways.

    Regardless, there’s no way Apple is going to bend over for Qualcomm forever. Modems are hard but if they were able to walk away from Intel+Nvidia, they can probably do this.

    • avgxp@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      Any phone with 6g technology will still require 5g, just like I still have 4g and 3g on my phone. I don’t think the challenge is technical, it’s legal, Qualcomm owns a lot of patents on modems that make it difficult to develop a competing product that performs well and efficientl, that is at least what I read years ago about Samsung’s modems

    • Asphult_@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      Disagree. Apple has very high standards and on a more performance level they need to outstrip or be at level with Qualcomm modems.

      Intel modems were inferior in every way to Qualcomm, so developing them to even match QC with their thousands of patents is not an easy feat.

      ARM processors I dare say are something more feasible to develop, as the architecture itself already lends its benefits to the company developing it versus x86.

      I do see Apple attempting this again in the near future though, but only when there is a more realistic opportunity.

  • pacwess@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Good! The last thing needed was another antenna gate. Just this time with an in-house modem.