Apple supplier Intel on Tuesday announced plans to exit the 5G smartphone modem business, with the decision arriving on the heels of a settlement reached in the wide sprawling Apple v. Qualcomm legal battle.
A surprise settlement in a years-long legal battle over licensing and patents has opened the door for Apple to adopt Qualcomm 5G modems, but the chips are not expected to reach iPhone until 2020.
After a year of maneuvering. Apple and Qualcomm are set to face off in Judge Gonzalo Curiel's courtroom starting on Tuesday afternoon. AppleInsider breaks down the developments of the last year, leading up to the trial.
Following Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei's comments that the firm is "open" to making 5G chipsets for future iPhones, current chairman Ken Hu denies having had any conversation with Apple.
Huawei's CEO Ren Zhengfei has said that his company is open to selling 5G modems to Apple, a company that he praises for its mobile legacy and maintaining quality products for decades.
Chinese telecoms giant Huawei is allegedly willing to sell its 5G Balong 5000 modem, but only to one other smartphone maker: Apple.
If Apple indeed having its reported trouble securing a 5G modem for 2020 iPhones from Intel or other vendors, Qualcomm is standing by, the chipmaker's president said on Friday.
Verizon on Wednesday activated its 5G Ultra Wideband network in parts of Chicago and Minneapolis, offering customers in the area up to 1 Gbps data speeds over the world's first commercial 5G network for mobile devices.
A report on Wednesday highlights Apple's struggles to obtain 5G modem chips for its flagship iPhone by 2020, saying increasingly tense relations with current supplier Intel might delay those plans. That might not matter, as the company is on track to build its own modems that could debut in 2021.
Apple is running up against pre-production deadlines to have an 5G modem in the 2020 iPhone, so it may wait until Apple is done with an in-house solution in 2021 a UBS analyst said on Wednesday.
Both Apple and Qualcomm are insisting that their victory in a U.S. International Trade Commission ruling, due Tuesday, will be essential to the future of 5G in the country.
AT&T's controversial "5G E" network — really rebranded 4G LTE — may actually be slower than Verizon and T-Mobile's LTE networks, a newly-published study says.
Verizon will launch its 5G mobile network on Apr. 11 in just two U.S. cities, Chicago and Minneapolis, and charge $10 extra versus regular 4G service.
Sprint in an open letter to consumers derides AT&T for its "5G Evolution" advertising push, saying accompanying "5G E" connectivity branding — soon to land on iPhone with iOS 12.2 — is a gambit designed to mislead consumers.
Apple may only be planning to add 5G to 2020 iPhones, but even then the company might have a hard time acquiring needed modems, according to analysts.
Media coverage from this year's MWC Barcelona, nee Mobile World Conference, has worked to establish a narrative that Apple is dangerously behind other companies in releasing support for 5G mobile networks and the foldable screens that enable a phone to convert into a tablet. Yet the last decade of MWC shows that vendor announcements aren't really worth very much.
Qualcomm may miss out on an opportunity to supply 5G modems for the 2020 iPhones, Barclays suggests, warning the window to make the necessary arrangements to provide the components is narrowing, with matters not helped by the chip producer's ongoing legal activity with Apple.
The U.S. branch of T-Mobile is delaying its 5G launch from the first half of 2019 until the second, owing to a lack of compatible phones, its CTO said in a Monday interview. [Updated with correction by T-Mobile]
Sprint will finally begin rollouts of what it calls 5G in May, the U.S. carrier announced on Monday, although without the speeds possible on some of its competitors' networks.
An iPhone capable of connecting to a carrier's 5G mobile network will not happen this year, an announcement from Intel indicates, with the chip producer's modems using the high-speed cellular communications technology not expected to appear in smartphones and mobile devices until 2020.
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Mikey Campbell
Mike Wuerthele
William Gallagher
Roger Fingas
AppleInsider Staff
Daniel Eran Dilger
Malcolm Owen
