5G smartphones are all around the market and most of the companies are offering you like Samsung, Motorola or OnePlus smartphones with 5G pre-built but one of the most innovating smartphones still lagging behind to adopt this technology, yes iPhone still not featured with 5G modem inside, which made competitors move ahead from Apple. 5G technology still not able to prove its capabilities as we have seen speeds like Gigabit in a smartphone but this speed is not consistent, also makes smartphone hotter which is due to drop off the band while 5G coverage is still in few cities in the U.S. around certain hotspots which results in poor coverage while roaming.
Apple recently buys Intel’s Modem business which helps Apple to take leverage Intel’s running project on 5G modem, it is expected that iPhone will release a 5G iPhone in 2020 which will be using Qualcomm modems, but their in-house chipset will not be ready until 2022, as this is confirmed from a report of “Fast Company”.
A report earlier this year from Reuters hinted that Apple has plans to ship iPhones with its own modems as soon as late 2021, but it only takes a small slip-up for that timeline to be delayed to 2022 – in line with the Fast Company reports.
The report further explains that the process of designing and manufacturing a new modem will be a laborious task. As the chipset is made by Apple they at-least find a vendor which will provide the chipset according to Apple’s standards. In addition to fabricating a functioning chip, Apple will then have to go through lengthy certification and FCC approvals.
In fact, bringing a new modem to the finish line in two years is really pushing it, my source said. After all the design work is done, and the fabrication of the chips themselves is underway, an arduous testing and certification process still awaits.
Apple will have to put the modem through network optimization testing to make sure it plays nice with the carriers’ wireless networks. The modem must be tested to ensure compliance with global standards, and undergo another battery of tests to satisfy FCC requirements.
By reading this source it will confirm that the iPhone in 2023 will feature this chipset. The current-gen. iPhone features Apple’s own system-on-a-chip which includes CPU, GPU, RAM, and other key components. This manufacturing technique gives Apple an upper hand toward optimizations of power which result in optimum performance of iPhone’s
Apple stills in partnership with Intel for modem business as Apple’s latest iPhone 11 and 11 Pro feature Intel modems. All the Intel modem were directly integrated with Apple’s own A-series chipset.
So all these will give the result that Apple will produce its own 5G modem until 2023 but as 5G technology is growing day by day Apple need to add 5G modem into 2020 iPhone and most promising partner will be Qualcomm as Apple has recently made multi-billion dollar settlement deal with Qualcomm, which has a terms of six years and an option to extend. But Qualcomm is not only options for Apple to bring 5G into a smartphone as Huawei and Media-Tek also made their own version of 5G modem.
