‘Apple’s own 5G modem is three years behind Qualcomm’s best modem’

Apple is still far from satisfied with its own 5G modems, claims The Wall Street Journal. The Apple prototypes tested at the end of last year are said to be more than three years behind Qualcomm’s best modem chips.

Internal tests late last year showed that Apple’s modem chips were still too slow and quickly overheated. The Wall Street Journal writes this based on conversations with former Apple engineers and executives. The modem’s circuit board would also take up about half the size of the iPhone itself and would therefore be unusable.

The original intention was that the company’s own modems would be used in the iPhone 15 series this year, but the underperforming prototypes threw a spanner in the works at the end of last year, the newspaper’s sources say. If they were used, it would reportedly have meant the iPhone 15 would lose out to the competition in terms of wireless speeds.

That is why executives decided to postpone the use of their own modem until 2024. However, it soon became clear that that goal could not be achieved, according to the newspaper. Apple then reportedly decided to sit down with Qualcomm again. Earlier this month it was announced that both companies have reached an agreement under which the latter will continue to supply 5G modems to Apple until at least 2026.

The sources WSJ speaks to are often critical of Apple’s actions. For example, the development teams would be spread across the US and beyond without a common manager. “Some managers discouraged reporting bad news about delays or other setbacks to engineers, leading to unrealistic goals and missed deadlines,” the paper said.

The executives reportedly have no experience with the development of wireless chips and therefore set deadlines that are too tight, former Apple engineers report. Only after the prototypes were tested late last year did they come to grips with the challenges of developing a 5G modem, according to WSJ. The newspaper’s sources expect that Apple will not come up with its own chip until the end of 2025 at the earliest that is ‘comparable’ to a Qualcomm modem.