Not sure. While Apple has been reliant on external modems from 3rd parties, they have been hiring wireless talent for in-house projects. Considering the highly vertical and secretive nature of Apple, generally the only time the public knows about these is if Apple discloses it at the unveiling or it is inferred to later after the product reaches the public's hands.
The one big downside to developing your own modem has always been regulatory compliance. If it doesn't pass, you have little options in the case of a fully integrated SoC except to disable the internal modem and hope your engineers provided a means to leverage an external one which impacts product design further down the line. Considering that the FCC has been keeping secrets about unannounced products fairly good recently, we wouldn't really know if Apple was going down this path for real products or not. Those wireless engineers could be put toward another project entirely.
Also wireless carriers have to play along. Nvidia learned that the hard way, when going up against Qualcomm. Luckily for Apple, they have long mastered the art of making carriers bow to their wishes.
"Apple, they have long mastered the art of making carriers bow to their wishes."
arguably, only over time. certainly, not at first. the iPhone went to the worst carrier in existence, since none of the others wanted any part of it. not clear that Apple controlled xG tech specs, ever.
that assumes we don't find something evil in mmWave 5G, the only one that really is 5G. and that after spending lots o mullah putting putting a transceiver on every power pole and street light in the country. for all those places without either, tough toe nails.
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GC2:CS - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
I honestly think that Apple will come up with their own integrated modem before this 5G mess cleans up.SydneyBlue120d - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
In the long time, maybe.Kevin G - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
Not sure. While Apple has been reliant on external modems from 3rd parties, they have been hiring wireless talent for in-house projects. Considering the highly vertical and secretive nature of Apple, generally the only time the public knows about these is if Apple discloses it at the unveiling or it is inferred to later after the product reaches the public's hands.The one big downside to developing your own modem has always been regulatory compliance. If it doesn't pass, you have little options in the case of a fully integrated SoC except to disable the internal modem and hope your engineers provided a means to leverage an external one which impacts product design further down the line. Considering that the FCC has been keeping secrets about unannounced products fairly good recently, we wouldn't really know if Apple was going down this path for real products or not. Those wireless engineers could be put toward another project entirely.
jeremyshaw - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
Also wireless carriers have to play along. Nvidia learned that the hard way, when going up against Qualcomm. Luckily for Apple, they have long mastered the art of making carriers bow to their wishes.FunBunny2 - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
"Apple, they have long mastered the art of making carriers bow to their wishes."arguably, only over time. certainly, not at first. the iPhone went to the worst carrier in existence, since none of the others wanted any part of it. not clear that Apple controlled xG tech specs, ever.
FunBunny2 - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
that assumes we don't find something evil in mmWave 5G, the only one that really is 5G. and that after spending lots o mullah putting putting a transceiver on every power pole and street light in the country. for all those places without either, tough toe nails.jrs77 - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
As Huawei is banned from the USA it doesn't really surprises me that they don't even think about working with Apple.GreenReaper - Tuesday, April 16, 2019 - link
Or rather, Apple doesn't think about working with them...paeschli - Thursday, April 18, 2019 - link
Turns out Apple had to settle with Qualcomm since Intel is about as good at making 5G modems than it is at making 10 nm CPUs...