It looks like Apple has something up its sleeves when it comes to 5G connectivity for many of its products. Last year, Apple acquired Broadcom, which paved the potential for advancements in 5G technology for years to come. Apple has been heavily rumored to develop its own in-house 5G modem to transition from Qualcomm’s modems as far back as 2018. Now, as the first of the three stories we’re going to report, it looks like Apple is shaping up to debut its first products that will use its first custom-built 5G modem, and according to Mark Gurman from Bloomberg, the first of these products are expected to be the iPhone SE 4, iPhone 17 Air, and the lower-end iPad models.
We’ve expected Apple to debut the iPhone SE 4, the 11th-generation base iPad, and the next-generation iPad Air (M3 or M4) next spring, followed by the introduction of the iPhone 17 Air later in the fall. Gurman expects Apple’s first 5G model to achieve theoretical 5G download speeds of up to 4 Gbps; however, they will be slower than existing Qualcomm’s modems in today’s iPhone lineup, but keep in mind that as with any wired or wireless speeds, real-world download speeds vary based on location and configuration, so you will not always achieve the maximum speed for any 5G connectivity.
With that said, Gurman also expects that Apple’s first 5G modem will not make its way to higher-end devices like the iPhone 17 Pro models. Furthermore, in line with previous rumors, the modem will not support the ultra-fast 5G mmWave standard. The biggest advantages of Apple’s in-house modem will be:
- lower power consumption,
- improved cellular network scanning, and
- satellite connectivity enhancements
So Apple’s ultimate goal will be to transition all of its 5G-enabled devices (iPhone and iPad) to use its own 5G modems by debuting its first 5G model on its new lower-end devices and then scaling up that technology to be used on future higher-end devices. Now you may be wondering, “Well that plan sounds familiar,” and Apple did something similar to its Macs a few years back. In June 2020, Apple announced it would transition its entire Mac lineup from Intel processors to Apple Silicon. So a few months later in November, Apple debuted the first Apple Silicon chip for the Mac (M1 chip) on the MacBook Air, the lower-end Mac mini, and the base 13-inch MacBook Pro. What those machines had in common was that they were entry-level products to begin with as the M1 chip was made for those types of machines. So Apple didn’t immediately transition the higher-end Mac models to Apple Silicon until as early as October 2021 when Apple debuted its first Apple Silicon chips for the pro computers (Pro, Max, and Ultra), and the last Mac to transition to Apple Silicon was the Mac Pro, which has been Apple’s highest-end Mac for years. So for the Apple Silicon transition, Apple started small with the M1 chip with its lower-end Macs before sizing up that technology for the higher-end Mac models, and that master strategy ultimately worked, making Apple’s Mac lineup even stronger than ever.
So for both the iPhone and iPad, the transition to using Apple’s 5G chips will be just as important as the Mac’s transition to Apple Silicon, allowing the iPhone and iPad to have even more advanced connectivity features that just won’t be possible with the current Qualcomm models, so the future definitely looks promising.
