Roger Fingas
Faced with an ongoing legal battle with Qualcomm, Apple is reportedly ramping up its use of Intel baseband chips in iPhones — despite previously weak performance from Intel's parts.
While Intel supplied about 30 percent of Apple's iPhone 7 chips in 2016, the proportion has risen to about 50 percent for new iPhones in 2017, DigiTimes said on Thursday. Some market watchers cited by the publication suggest that the ratio could go past 70 percent in 2018, since Apple and Qualcomm have so far been unwilling to make concessions.
When Apple began using Intel's chips last year, the components were found only in GSM-based iPhones for AT&T and T-Mobile, since Intel didn't yet have CDMA-compatible technology for carriers like Sprint and Verizon. In fact it was discovered that Apple was deliberately limiting the performance of Qualcomm chips, since Intel's chips had substantially lower peak bandwidth.
Since then, however, Intel has launched its XMM 7560 LTE modem, which supports CDMA and can theoretically hit gigabit speeds. The chip will presumably find its way into Apple's "iPhone 8," and possibly the "iPhone 7s" and "7s Plus."
Apple launched a lawsuit against Qualcomm in January, leveling many accusations, for instance saying that Qualcomm was abusing its "monopoly power" to demand high royalties and force chip buyers to license patents. Above all it charged that Qualcomm was withholding almost $1 billion in rebates in retaliation for helping a South Korean antitrust investigation.
A countersuit was launched in April, and since then Qualcomm has also sought a court order asking that Apple's suppliers keep paying royalties. Those suppliers stopped paying Qualcomm earlier this year.
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31 Comments
I know everyone wants the fastest speeds possible, but a number of network factors often limit these speeds anyway. I think for those that have Intel vs Qualcomm modems in their iPhone 7's, you wouldn't even know the difference in real-life scenarios. Most of the time, my iPhone 7's cellular connection is faster or as fast as any WiFi network I can find anyway. I now keep WiFi turned off and most of the time just connect my laptop to the phone for tethered access. Have you used public WiFi anywhere lately? It's terrible and insecure.
I just checked (because I never cared before) and I have the Intel modem. Works great! Again, it's typically faster than I could care for it to be (About 36Mb download and 16Mb upload with 3 bars). I guess maybe I'm just still amazed that I get that sort of bandwidth on a device that fits in my pocket no matter where I take it.
Fairly certain the new Intel parts match if not beat the Qualcomm parts - otherwise why would Apple pick a fight with Qualcomm without a backup vendor that at least matches performance of their current supplier. It's a similar scenario to Imagination ... you can bet they have another graphic alternative before they announced they are dumping them.
Does Apple sell any iPhones with intel modem's in the US? It would surely have to be marked differently for use on different networks surely - I'm just thinking I'd be pretty pissed off if I bought an iPhone, unlocked it then found it doesn't work on my network. Conversely, there is no real reason to use the Qualcomm modem outside of the US as CDMA is pretty much defunct elsewhere or was never used in the first place.
How many patents does Intel have covering CDMA technology? I thought Qualcomm owned just about all of them? If Qualcomm does, are they licensing their patents to Intel and then also charging Apple?
I have an iPhone 6S so I assume it's using Qualcomm's chips. My Verizon LTE coverage is weak where I live, only getting 7.8 down and 0.31 up with 2 dots. Change back to Comcast with my Airport router and it's 231 down and 12 up and I'm not right next to the base station. Cellular is great when you don't have access to WiFi but all those figures about how fast cellular is or will be only count when you're near a cell tower, which doesn't happen except along I-5 in the Pacific Northwest. Of course, Comcast will say use their xfinity WiFi back channel on Comcast installations but this is slower than cellular.