A sketchy report claims that plans to design an in-house Apple 5G modem chip have been abandoned, after the company struggled to make progress with the project.
It follows a series of reports describing the challenges faced by the company, including one which suggested that the project was proving a “spectacular failure” …
Background: Apple’s motivation for the project
Current iPhones use Qualcomm modem chips, also known as radio chips. These combine mobile data, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth to handle all wireless comms for the phones. But Apple was for years unhappy about its dependence on Qualcomm, for two reasons.
First, instead of charging Apple a flat licence fee for permission to use Qualcomm’s patented technology in iPhones, the chipmaker insisted instead on a percentage of the iPhone’s value.
Second, even when Apple bought its radio chips from Qualcomm, the chipmaker still insisted that Apple needed a patent licence as well. That was a practice the Cupertino company referred to as “double-dipping.”
The battle between the two companies led to literally years of lawsuits, before Intel’s surprise exit as a competitor effectively forced Apple to reach a settlement with Qualcomm in order to secure continued supplies of radio chips.
The Apple 5G modem project
Intel’s exit did have one upside: Apple bought the chipmaker’s modem business for a billion dollars, giving it some 2,200 employees, and over 17,000 patents.
That, plus Apple’s chip design expertise, plus other engineers poached from Qualcomm, looked like a winning formula, with many expecting an Apple 5G radio chip to debut in the iPhone 15. That didn’t happen, and doubts have also been raised about whether the company will make it in time for the iPhone 16.
In September, the WSJ ran a particularly downbeat report, describing progress to date as a “spectacular failure.”
Sketchy claim that Apple is shuttering the project
A blog post by yeux1122 claims that Apple has now abandoned the project.
This is the related company’s source. It is said that it has entered the stage of liquidating its continued investment in 5G modem development departments and personnel that Apple has been developing in-house in recent years. In other words, attempts to […] develop its own modem appear to be unsuccessful and are expected to be completely abandoned.
9to5Mac’s Take
We recently noted the blogger’s mixed track record.
While yeux1122 talks about “supply chain sources,” it’s doubtful that they have any: almost everything posted from the account is based on what they’ve read on Weibo and other Chinese social media. The most recent claim we’ve had the opportunity to check out was that the iPhone 15 Pro models would start at 256GB instead of 128GB (true) and max out at 2TB instead of 1TB (false).
If this report were true, it would be huge news, because of both the length of time Apple has been working on this, and the size of its investment in the work – including that billion-dollar purchase from Intel.
There seems little doubt that Apple has been finding the project a challenging one, perhaps much more so than expected. But we’d want a lot better sourcing than a repost of something from a Chinese social media site to give this much credence.
Photo: Frederik Lipfert/Unsplash
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