Apple is pleased with its technological terrier, however not every little thing within the fashionable iPhone belongs to Apple. The corporate is beholden to Qualcomm for the iPhone modem and would like to have its personal homegrown modem to energy the smartphone. Sadly, plans for this to occur have been delayed.
Prospects expertise iPhone 15 on the Apple flagship retailer in Shanghai (Picture by Costfoto/NurPhoto … [+] by way of Getty Pictures)
NurPhoto by way of Getty Pictures
Particulars on the delay to Apple's personal modem come from a current unique report by Bloomberg. Not solely did Apple miss the goal of getting a modem able to go in 2024, it's now prone to miss the brand new objective of 2025 as effectively.
Apple has an extended and troubled historical past with iPhone modems. An clearly essential a part of the smartphone, Apple has been tied to Qualcomm's modem expertise for greater than a decade. Tim Cook dinner and his staff have labored on each space of its {hardware} to have extra management over elements—witness the distinction utilizing its personal Apple Silicon in comparison with Intel's chipsets within the Mac as a motive why.
However that flexibility isn't current within the modem, which depends on Qualcomm's expertise to energy the connectivity between the iPhone and the surface world. Apple has been working to interrupt free. Some of the obvious indicators was In 2019 when it acquired Intel's modem division in a deal valued at $1 billion.
That effort has not come to fruition. Because the iPhone 15 household was launched, Apple admitted extending its deal for Qualcomm Modems out to 2026.
Apple aimed to deliver its modem {hardware} to the iPhone design in early 2025, concentrating on the presumptively named iPhone 17. It's reported that even that date has slipped by probably as much as a yr. That may take the plans for the modem launch into the very ultimate yr of the present Qualcomm/Apple contract.
That's clearly excellent news for Qualcomm as a result of it will ship a number of modems. For Apple, the modem stays one a part of the iPhone equation that's out of the corporate's attain. Till it could possibly match Qualcomm's providing at a minimal, it can stay beholden to the corporate till 2026.
And maybe past, if historical past is any precedent.
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