A few days ago, we reported about Apple’s plans to transition its iPhone and iPad lineups to use its own custom-built 5G modems. Now, in the third part of the report, Mark Gurman reports that Apple is exploring bringing cellular connectivity for the first time ever. This would be incredibly huge for the Mac, especially the MacBook lineup as those machines are made to take with you wherever you go. The Mac has been one of Apple’s major product categories that still lacks any cellular connectivity option.
As a matter of fact, Macs with cellular connectivity have been rumored as far back as 2008, the year when Apple introduced the MacBook Air, which became Apple’s thinnest and lightest laptop. Former CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, declared that the company did consider implementing a modem chip in the MacBook Air; however, the company decided against it since Apple would not be able to fit the modem chip inside the ultra-thin design of the MacBook Air. On top of that, a cellular connection would lock customers to a specific carrier, hence committing to some kind of carrier plan. Thus, it would limit the flexibility to switch between carriers, especially when traveling across various countries. Not to mention that given Intel’s power-hungry processors, using a cellular connection would drain the battery even faster as the battery life on those machines was already not as good.
But thanks to the advancements in chip technology (both modem and system-on-chip), including the energy-efficiency improvements that Apple Silicon offers, we now have significantly more battery life on MacBooks than ever before. And since we now have more flexibility in using a cellular connection whenever we need to use it (with no commitments), the idea of a cellular-enabled MacBook is starting to become a reality down the road. However, we shouldn’t expect such a Mac to launch until 2026 at the earliest, so while it’s a few years away, the future of Apple products with 5G connectivity is brighter than ever.
