In the previous story, we reported that Apple would debut its very first 5G model for next year’s mobile devices such as the iPhone SE 4 and lower-end iPads. Now, Mark Gurman is also reporting an overall roadmap for Apple’s 5G model development. As part of his report, he expects Apple to debut the second-generation 5G modem in the iPhone 18 Pro models in late 2026 and in the iPad Pro lineup sometime in 2027, so not the next-generation iPad Pro where we expect to see the M5 chip, but the generation after that.
While it is further down the road, Gurman expects the second-generation 5G modem from Apple to have even faster theoretical 5G download speeds of up to 6 Gbps, compared to 4 Gbps for the incoming first-generation modem from Apple. This second-generation 5G model will compete better with Qualcomm in that it will bring back the ultra-fast 5G mmWave standard. You may have remembered that the iPad Pro (M4) that was introduced this May dropped mmWave support even though previous M1/M2 models had this feature, so if this rumor turns out to be true, that means the future iPad Pro will finally bring back a premium feature that is notably absent in the current model.
But the story doesn’t stop there as Gurman also expects Apple to introduce the third-generation 5G modem as early as 2027 as it’s aiming to match the performance of the best Qualcomm modems and even introduce AI features, which is going to be interesting especially we’re in the era of AI with the recent launch of Apple Intelligence. At the same time, Apple may be merging the modem into the iPhone’s silicon that integrates the CPU, GPU, NPU, and memory into one chip, similar to how Apple eventually integrated its motion coprocessors into its silicon for the iPhone starting with the A9 chip back in 2015.
With that said, the future of Apple’s own 5G connectivity looks to be very promising.
