It took difficult effort to replace the Qualcomm chip with Apple’s own design. Many of us wonder if this enormous amount of labor is justified by saving a few cents on each iPhone.
Those doubts are further enhanced by the fact that, as insiders will tell you, and Hilltrone’s report further corroborates, it is a move that is not going to benefit consumers immediately. But Apple hopes long-term gains will ensue.
The battle between Apple and Qualcomm chip
Every cellphone, smart or otherwise, needs a modem to provide cellular data connectivity. Qualcomm, a US chipmaker, has always supplied those chips to iPhones and iPads. Apple’s relationship with Qualcomm, however, has always been stormy and what started as a difference of opinion evolved into an all-out legal fight that was resolved only recently with a settlement.
An Apple modem is taking years to develop Qualcomm chip
For years, Apple has been stuck in this cat-and-mouse game while it’s been trying to develop its in-house modem. The deadlines keep getting pushed back. Why? Because making a radio chip that works with all mobile standards on Earth is a monstrous task. A rumor mill surfaced last year that Apple had given up the ghost.
Many would ask why the company would be investing so heavily in such a critical yet unglamorous component. More so with the revelation that Apple’s chip maker, Johny Srouji, explicitly expressed they prefer off-the-shelf parts unless there’s an extremely compelling reason to go solo.
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Not just about cost
An article in Bloomberg, however, speculates that although it concedes there is no customer benefit in the short term, it does feel the work will pay off in the long run.
Even people inside Apple acknowledge that consumers really don’t care who makes the modem in their phone, and, at least to them, the user experience won’t be changed significantly .
But Apple does plan to put its modem design within a new wireless chip that delivers Wi-Fi and Bluetooth access in the long term. That would create one connectivity component that, in theory, could enhance reliability and battery life.
It’s also conceivable that Apple will integrate all of this into the device’s main system on a chip, or SoC, someday. That would shave off even more costs and space inside the iPhone—leaving room for a wide variety of design choices, like nipping at Qualcomm’s heels.
However, there are big risks
Those huge lists of all of the different standards a modem chip has to support, and all of the conditions in which it has to work.
Modem testing has to happen worldwide in many, many different environments, and moving more than a billion users to an in-house model comes not without its risks. In case Apple messes this up, it could be conceivable that it is the greatest iPhone scandal since Antennagate.