New report says Apple’s homegrown 5G modem chip won’t be ready for the iPhone 17 series،
While Apple and Qualcomm were constantly fighting in court and not exactly talking to each other, Apple tasked Intel with developing a 5G modem chip so it wouldn’t have to deal with San Diego-based Qualcomm. Eventually, Apple abandoned Intel and paid Qualcomm a large sum of money to drop all lawsuits and agree to ship 5G modem chips to Apple. The deal was made in 2018, a few years before the iPhone 12 line became the first iPhone model to support 5G.
Apple hoped to have its local 5G modem chip ready for the iPhone 15 series, but that proved impossible. Apple’s next goal was to have its 5G modem chip ready for the 2025 iPhone 17 series, but it also looks like that’s unlikely to happen according to Bloomberg.
Apple hoped Intel could produce a 5G modem chip that could compete with Qualcomm’s modem
Last September, Apple and Qualcomm signed a deal that will keep Apple supplied with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 5G modem chips through 2026. And Apple may need every single modem chip it plans to buy . Indeed, the tech giant will be lucky if it finishes its 5G modem chip by the end of 2025. For Qualcomm, which had already imagined the worst a few years ago and hoped to hold a small share of the modem chip market for iPhone 5G by the end of 2025. 2024 is like living on borrowed time.
Trying to build its own 5G modem chip has been a difficult experience for Apple. Just days after Apple and Qualcomm agreed to the new pact, a report published in The Wall Street Journal mentioned that the local 5G modem chip that Apple tested was so large that it took up half the internal space of an iPhone. It was also too slow and would overheat.
Apple instead decided to continue using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X-series 5G modem chip with the iPhone15 line using the Snapdragon X70 5G modem. With the latest deal with Qualcomm covering Apple until 2026, the latter only has three years at most to get its own 5G modem chip into shape. If it becomes clear that Apple won’t be able to make it in time to equip the 2027 iPhone 19 with its own modems, you can expect Apple to extend its contract with Qualcomm again.
