Apple's 5G modem is said to be worse than Qualcomm's.

It remains exciting with the eternal rivals $AAPL (+1,34%) and $QCOM (+2,48%)

Perhaps Qualcom should launch its own cell phone and notebook on the market. What is your opinion on this?

Also $1810 (+2,98%) Xiaomi is focusing more and more on its own products, is Qualcomm still interesting for you?

Apple is to replace Qualcomm's 5G modems with its own from 2025. According to a report, Apple's modem will be slower, among other things.

According to a media report, Apple's self-developed 5G modem with the internal name Sinope will be less powerful in many functions than current top modems from Qualcomm. As the usually well-informed journalist Mark Gurman from Bloomberg reports, Sinope is said to achieve a downlink of 4 Gbps in laboratory tests.

For comparison: Qualcomm's X80 modem, which is installed in the new Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC, achieves a maximum downlink value of 10 Gbps.

Unlike Qualcomm's X80 modem, Sinope will also not support mmWave, but only the Sub-6 standard. This could lead to problems, especially in the USA, one of Apple's most important markets, as mmWave is often used in large cities there.

According to Gurman, Sinope will only use 4-carrier aggregation, as opposed to the 6- or 8-carrier aggregation used by Qualcomm. The higher the carrier aggregation, the higher the network capacity and correspondingly the higher the speed for users. In return, Apple's modem should achieve better radiation values and facilitate satellite communication. Dual SIM standby is also to be made possible.

Apple's modem development is said to be plagued by problems

Apple has been trying for years to develop its own 5G modem in order to become less dependent on Qualcomm. With its own SoCs, Apple has been setting standards in the smartphone market for years (and now also in the PC market), but the company is still dependent on its long-standing partner Qualcomm for modems.

There are said to have been numerous problems in the development of the modem. Among other things, the prototypes developed so far are said to have been too slow or too inefficient.

However, Apple does not appear to be deviating from its plan to install its own modem in its devices. The first version is to appear in the iPhone SE 4, a smartphone that is not one of the top iPhones.

https://www.golem.de/news/sinope-apples-5g-modem-soll-schlechter-sein-als-qualcomms-2412-191515.html