Insanely great, Apple’s multi-year project to build its own modem is not; other than at incinerating untold billions of dollars, that is. Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie for The Wall Street Journal: The 2018 marching orders from Apple increase; green up pointing triangle Chief Executive Tim Cook to design and build a modem chip—a part that connects iPhones to wireless carriers—led to the hiring of thousands of engineers. The goal was to sever Apple’s grudging dependence on Qualcomm, a longtime chip supplier that dominates the modem market. The obstacles to finishing the chip were largely of Apple’s own making, according to former company engineers and executives familiar with the project… Apple executives who didn’t have experience with wireless chips set…

Insanely great, Apple’s multi-year project to build its own modem is not; other than at incinerating untold billions of dollars, that is. Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie for The Wall Street Journal: The 2018 marching orders from Apple increase; green up pointing triangle Chief Executive Tim Cook to design and build a modem chip—a part that connects iPhones to wireless carriers—led to the hiring of thousands of engineers. The goal was to sever Apple’s grudging dependence on Qualcomm, a longtime chip supplier that dominates the modem market. The obstacles to finishing the chip were largely of Apple’s own making, according to former company engineers and executives familiar with the project… Apple executives who didn’t have experience with wireless chips set…

In the last few years, Apple has spent billions of dollars attempting to develop its own modem chip to replace the Qualcomm modem chips that it uses in iPhones, but a new paywalled Wall Street Journal report suggests Apple's approach to the project has been dogged by unrealistic goals, a poor understanding of the challenges involved, and completely unusable prototypes. Apple's plan to design its own in-house modem led to the hiring of thousands of engineers: Apple acquired the majority of Intel's smartphone modem business in 2019, and as it filled the project's ranks with Intel engineers and others hired from Qualcomm, company executives set a goal to have the modem chip ready for fall 2023. The modem chip project…

Apple, the world’s most valuable company has more than $166 billion in the bank and produces over $100 billion in annual free cash flow. The company has, for many years, also been working to develop its own modem chip, seemingly to no immediate avail. Dan Gallagher for The Wall Street Journal: [D]esigning the complex chips is apparently far easier said than done. Qualcomm, Apple’s current supplier of modem processors, said Monday morning that the two companies have extended their current chip-supply deal to cover iPhones launched from 2024-2026. That’s two years past the point when Qualcomm last told investors that its iPhone business would peter out, and three years beyond the company’s first projection for the end of that business…

Apple’s seemingly quixotic, years-long modem effort still won’t be bearing fruit in the near future as Qualcomm on Monday announced that it has entered into an agreement with Apple to supply Snapdragon 5G Modem‑RF Systems for smartphone launches in 2024, 2025 and 2026. “This agreement reinforces Qualcomm’s track record of sustained leadership across 5G technologies and products.” – Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. Qualcomm also said that the patent licensing deal inked with Apple in 2019 remains in place. That deal expires in 2025, but the companies have an option to extend it every two years. Just last week, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said he expected Apple to finally deploy its own modem chips starting in 2025. Looks like that…

Apple has renewed its agreement with Qualcomm to use its 5G modems until 2026. The current deal would have expired at the end of 2023. The three-year deal signals Apple’s in-house modem is still far from ready. Qualcomm itself was expecting Apple to switch to its modem in 2024. iPhones to continue with 5G Qualcomm […] (via Cult of Mac - Tech and culture through an Apple lens)