Report: Apple’s First iPhone Modem Has Reportedly Been Delayed

Apple’s plan to get its first in-house iPhone modem ready by 2025 has reportedly hit a snag. According to a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple is still “years away” from being capable of creating a better modem than the Qualcomm ones that the company currently uses in its iPhones.

“Thousands of employees have worked on the project since 2018, and still Apple remains years away from cracking the problem. Its goal is for the modem to download data faster than current technology. But people with knowledge of the project, who asked not to be identified, believe that’s unlikely based on the current state of development.

In September, Qualcomm announced that it had extended its wireless partnership with Apple for three more years until 2026. While Apple designs some of the best system-on-chips (SoC) on the market with its A-series and M-series chips for iPhones, iPads, and Macs, modem development is much more complex. In comparison, Qualcomm has decades of experience in wireless technology and is driving 5G innovation today.

According to Gurman’s sources, Apple’s internal roadmap for its first in-house iPhone modem was to get it ready to ship in its next low-cost iPhone SE in 2024. However, Gurman believes that this new iPhone SE with an in-house modem may not be released until at least the “end of 2025 or early 2026.”

If Apple’s first iPhone modem will be a standalone chip, Gurman also reports that Apple is already working on integrating this component right into its main SoCs to save space. Eventually, Apple would also bring its own modems to its other mobile products such as the iPad and the Apple Watch. If we have yet to see a MacBook with cellular connectivity, this is also something Apple could do to match what Qualcomm-powered Windows PCs offer today.

Lastly, Apple is also said to be working on its own wireless and Bluetooth chips to replace those made by Broadcom in its iPhones. While this separate effort will also take many years, Apple very much continues to believe that vertical integration and tight integration between hardware and software can offer a better experience than the competition.