Apple is finally ready to conquer Qualcomm in the 5G game

The most important thing about the new iPhone 16e is the Apple-designed cellular modem inside, the C1. The C1 is the first visible sign of Apple’s decade-long goal to no longer be reliant on Qualcomm for one of the most important parts of any smartphone, namely its connection to cellular networks. The C1 is also an endorsement of the entire approach Apple has taken with Apple silicon, which will lead to future Apple products that are more efficient and better integrated than ever before.

Bad blood

We all know that Apple doesn’t particularly like Qualcomm, with the two companies having been engaged in numerous lawsuits before finally calling it quits in 2019. A few months after settling with Qualcomm, Apple spent $1 billion to buy Intel’s modem business. The goal was clear: Apple settled with Qualcomm and agreed to pay patent fees and buy Qualcomm’s modems… until it could make its own. Nearly six years later, that time has come.

The rest of the smartphone world doesn’t seem to mind buying Qualcomm’s modems, which hold a dominant market share, especially when you only consider high-end phones like the ones Apple makes. As current iPhone users know, Qualcomm’s 5G modems are solid, fast, and good. So why is Apple kicking against them so hard?

Yes, part of it is (as illustrated in some of those lawsuits) that Apple feels Qualcomm is making money on patents that either shouldn’t exist or should be licensed for far less than what the company charges. But that’s water under the bridge–the lawsuits were settled, and Apple will probably have to keep paying Qualcomm for patents until they expire.

We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make.

Tim Cook, January 2009

But the bigger issue is what’s commonly called the Cook Doctrine, though it’s a philosophy that dates back to Steve Jobs. As Cook said back in 2009, “We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products we make.”

What’s more relevant to a maker of mobile devices than wireless connections? (And oh, by the way, Apple is also rumored to be building its own Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, too.)

But this isn’t just about independence from a supplier you dislike. It’s about the power of controlling your own destiny, Apple silicon style.

The Apple silicon playbook

Think back to the days when Macs were powered by Intel processors. While Apple was a good customer of Intel’s for a long time, in the end, they were just that–a customer, buying products. While a good manufacturer talks to their customers and tries to give them what they want, it’s Intel’s job to make chips for the entire PC market, not just Apple. Intel’s chips are built to sell well in the PC market, not just to integrate with the designs of any single manufacturer. Qualcomm is much the same.

Apple silicon doesn’t work that way. Every Apple-designed chip is built with specific products in mind. The M4 was designed with the 2024 iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac in mind–and the forthcoming 2025 MacBook Air, too. The hardware and chip design–not to mention the operating system—all go hand in hand. It’s a huge advantage because it allows for optimizations that no third-party chip vendor could match. Apple only builds the features it needs, and nothing it doesn’t.

All of this goes for the C1 chip, too. For example, Apple can prioritize energy efficiency more than a Qualcomm chip destined for an array of different use cases ever could. It goes beyond optimization because Apple can also build the features it wants into its chips–features that Qualcomm might not see value in building for the whole market.

While Apple has boasted that the C1 chip is differentiated by its ability to reprioritize data transfers based on information from the Apple-designed processor, I’m sure that Qualcomm has similar quality-of-service functionality in its chips. But again, it’s implemented the way that Qualcomm wants, not Apple–and it’s not implemented with the specific characteristics of Apple’s operating systems in mind.

Learning curve

There’s a reason the C1 is debuting in Apple’s low-cost, low-volume iPhone 16e. Apple is starting small. The C1 probably can’t keep up with Qualcomm’s best chips in all circumstances, and Apple knows this. (You’ll know when Apple is confident that it’s caught or bested Qualcomm–that’ll be the moment when it ships its own cellular modem in top-of-the-line iPhone models.)

In fact, I think it’s almost guaranteed that once the iPhone 16e ships, someone will discover specific ways in which the C1 lags behind the performance of other iPhones, and will breathlessly report this as some sort of scandal. But it’s almost inevitable: this is the first step, to get Apple in the game. There will be more.

“We build a platform for generations,” Srouji told Reuters. “C1 is the start, and we’re going to keep improving that technology each generation so that it becomes a platform for us that will be used to truly differentiate this technology for our products.”

So yes, Apple doesn’t love Qualcomm. But this strategy isn’t about sticking it to a supplier-turned-competitor. It’s about making Apple’s devices fundamentally better in the long run. Apple’s ability to design its chips with a singular focus on its own ecosystem ensures that its hardware and software will work together in ways that no third-party supplier could match–not even the best one in the world.

Given how well Apple has executed every other aspect of Apple silicon over the last decade, who wants to bet against them nailing this one too?