According to a detailed report from the Wall Street Journal, Apple’s attempt to develop its own in-house 5G modem has been stymied by issues resulting from the iPhone maker underestimating the complexity and technical challenges of the task, and a lack of global leadership to guide the separate development groups siloed in the US and abroad.
“They hate Qualcomm’s living guts,” says Edward Snyder, a wireless industry expert and managing director of Charter Equity Research, in comments reported by the WSJ.
After settling its dispute with Qualcomm in 2019, Apple quickly acquired Intel’s smartphone modem business, along with a few thousand engineers to help advance its development efforts.
That’s why Apple extended its modem deal with Qualcomm — which would have expired at the end of this year — just days before the iPhone 15 was announced.
And while some have lauded Huawei’s HiSilicon chip design business for beating Apple to the punch with the apparent development of its own 5G modem in China’s Mate 60 Pro, lab tests show that Huawei’s chips consume more power than competitors’ and cause the phone “to heat up” which is bad for performance.
Apple’s custom modem work continues, and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman suggests we’ll likely see them gradually roll out before the current Qualcomm deal expires in 2026.
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