• Apple modem to appear in handsets and iPads next year.
• Less capable than its Qualcomm alternative.
• Slated for use in the company’s cheaper products.

Apple’s long-maintained preference to keep every aspect of its products, both hardware and software, in-house sees the company take the step of slating its own 5G modem for appearance in the next version of the iPhone SE.

Modems are the components that liaise between a phone and the network service provider, usually a telecoms company, providing users with access to data, messaging and voice calls.

Apple currently sources its modems from Qualcomm, a US-based company with which Apple has a dual relationship; both a partner in its supply chain, and competitor – one which Apple has had legal beef with in the past.

To overcome the challenges inherent in designing and manufacturing such a complex element in a cellphone, Apple has hired multiple ex-Qualcomm employees and invested billions of dollars worldwide in research and development. The result is a modem known as Sinope, which is said will also appear in 2025 in lower-end iPads as well as a rumoured lighter, thinner iPhone SE.

Apple modem’s technical details

However, according to a report in Bloomberg, Apple’s Sinope lacks the capability and speed of the Qualcomm equivalent, which will continue to be used in Apple’s higher-end devices. That’s down to Sinope not supporting mmWave technology as used by several carriers in the US and around the world. Instead, the new, low-end devices will rely on so-called Sub-6 standards, which lab tests have shown to be slower in wireless information transfer speeds. Additionally, the Sinope modem supports only four carrier bands (four-carrier aggregation), compared to the six or more supported by Qualcomm modems that also supports mmWave.

Apple has planned for a second-generation modem to be ready by 2026, code-named Ganymede, with support for mmWave technologies providing eight-carrier aggregation, in addition to six-carrier aggregation using Sub-6. There are also plans for a third generation of hardware to appear in 2027 that could offer satellite communication capabilities and (as you might expect given this story’s 2024 provenance) AI capability.

Research and development activities into the next-generation modems and Sinope have been taking place in Munich, Germany and at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters. Sources close to the matter have reported that some staff have been equipped with phones sporting the Sinope modem to provide the company with real-life performance metrics.

The new (historically lower-powered) iPhone SE is rumoured offer a full, edge-to-edge screen, and be thinner than the current iPhone SE. Having a slower, less-capable modem will, the company hopes, not impact the user experience of its new model’s owners, and it seems unlikely that Sinope will appear in the company’s high-end, more expensive iPhone models: Customers paying over US$1000 for a phone tend to be a less-forgiving demographic.

The Apple modem could mean that users suffer from worse connectivity in terms of available networks, and may even have calls drop – the latter a problem that Apple will be working hard to solve between now and the iPhone SE’s launch, early next year.

In 2017 Apple sued Qualcomm in a dispute over Qualcomm’s charges it levied against Apple for the use of Qualcomm patents. In a legal tit-for-tat, Qualcomm attempted to get the sale of iPhones banned in the US, China and Europe because of violations of patents it holds. It’s speculated that Apple’s decision to create its own modem hardware was taken in direct response to the disagreement. Regardless, Apple’s preference for owning as much of its means of production in software and hardware as it can continues.