Apple does not seem to be able to replace Qualcomm’s modems with in-house ones for the time being. The company is said to be ‘three years behind’ the best Qualcomm chips.
It is an open secret that Apple wants to get rid of Qualcomm modems. Such modems are more expensive than the ones it develops itself, especially in the long term. For the time being, however, Apple does not seem to be able to change that – reports The Wall Street Journal. Internal testing shows that the current revision is three years behind Qualcomm’s best modems in terms of performance.
The chips would also be much too big. Apple’s current modem would eat up about half of an iPhone’s internal space. According to the newspaper, the modem would also quickly become too hot. In short: Apple’s modem is currently unusable. Apple itself also came to this conclusion, which is why it now uses Qualcomm modems in the iPhone 15 series.
Apple initially wanted to use its own modems for that series. After it became known that the performance was substandard, Qualcomm was still given the modemorder. In fact, the companies decided to extend their contractual cooperation. Qualcomm will supply 5G modems to the technology giant until at least 2026.
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When will Apple’s modem be ready? Sources from the newspaper state that 2024 will not be reached and the modem will not be able to compete with Qualcomm’s offering until 2025 at the earliest. However, the question is whether that goal will also be achieved. Managers of the modem teams are said to have little experience with the development of such chips. As a result, deadlines were initially set that were far too tight.
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Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman expects that Apple will succeed in widely rolling out the modem before 2026. Whether this will actually succeed remains to be seen in time. The iPhone 17 may be the first device with the in-house modem.
