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They always had problems adopting industry standards.
It’s more of a spectrum / bandwidth allocation standard that’s always changing - personally just use Qualcomm and be effin done with it Apple - seems to be the too hard basket.
I’m all for competition but Apple really do lack in the 5G arena…. With their own silicon anyway.
I have ZERO idea how this is perfectly legal and not something the EU/USA have gone after. Qualcomm’s patents effectively make it the only company capable of building a high performance modem with good battery life.
From Apple’s perspective they have to pay a competitor to use their product that is simply inferior to integrating a modem into their silicon because patents. It’s very stupid.
Even on Windows laptops, we can’t get x86 laptops with built in cellular connectivity standard because of these patents mainly.
The fact Apple bought out Intel’s entire failed modem division and it is still struggling is insane. This shouldn’t be legal.
I would imagine Apple is a big enough company to weather these troubles and eventually get something out of it. It seems at the scale of their iphone sales, it would still make sense to keep sinking billions more into this than have to pay the Qualcomm tax forever.
really depends on how much Qualcomm charges.
Personally I doubt it’s that much. Too high and qualcomm would very quickly be smothered with antitrust/fair pricing suits considering they hold enough patents to stall every designer. Apple just wants to control as much of their product as possible, but whether or not that’s practical for every piece of IP remains to be seen.
Yes and no Apple has to reinvent the wheel outside of any patents that Qualcomm have, isn’t an easy feat, but yes it would make more sense to keep going rather than giving money to an opposing company lol
This is despite the iGiant swallowing Intel’s 5G modem business back in 2019 after the chipmaker said it was exiting that sector. Apple picked up about 2,200 Intel workers plus intellectual property in that deal, valued at $1 billion.
Bloomberg noted that Apple also has to be careful not to infringe Qualcomm’s patents, which may be slowing design efforts. In addition, the cellular standards themselves are a moving target as they continue to be developed and updated.
Bloomberg noted that Apple also has to be careful not to infringe Qualcomm’s patents, which may be slowing design efforts.
This probably is the slowest and most expensive hurdle to overcome. Qualcomm is a patent giant in this area, its almost impossible not to trip over something they have patented.
the problem there is intel’s 5g modems just didn’t work as opposed to worked well and then got sued by Qualcomm. Apple would also pretty happily fight that battle in court. Make a working 5g chipset then release it, make millions in market with a back up chip ready if they get a bad court decision but hope to fight qualcomm over unfair patents.
But they need a working competitive 5g chip first, which Intel and now Apple using basically the same starting point, just don’t have yet.
I think it’s because they swallowed Intel’s 5g modem business. intel’s modems were miles behind the competition in 4g and their 5g modems were straight failures. I do remember the hilarious PR around it.
“hey I know it seems bad because all our products got cancelled and everyone we work with was let down, but it’s all because our modem is sooooo good we’re skipping the first chipset (which totally works and is done for reals) and moving the second chipset up by 6 months”
The Intel PR around their modems sounded like it was written by Trump.