Apple's hardware team has been crushing it for years across all product categories, notably with the new Apple Silicon chips that debuted in 2020 and have only grown more powerful in subsequent generations.
And, while we knew the company has been working on its modem chips for a while now, we could see the fruits of that labor in the coming year.
That's according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, with the latest issue of his Power On newsletter noting that Apple is "devoting billions of dollars, thousands of engineers and millions of working hours to a project that won’t really improve its devices — at least at the outset."
And while Apple's supplier agreement with modem manufacturer Qualcomm runs until March 2027 (an uneasy alliance given how much Apple pays for those chips), Gurman says Apple's own modem chip could arrive next year - but stops short of saying it'll be in the iPhone 17.
It's not about what's now, it's about what's next
"There have been problems with performance and overheating, and Apple has been forced to push back the modem’s debut until next year at the earliest," Gurman says.
"The rollout will take place on a gradual basis — starting with niche models — and take a few years to complete."
So aside from saving Apple money, what other benefits does this offer iPhone users? Gurman says plans are afoot to roll it in with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi management for a single wireless chip, or that all of this could eventually be added to the SoC.
Still, as Gurman notes - in an age of tech sites (iMore included) and YouTube channels running speed comparisons, the best Apple can likely hope for is that there's no reason users are even made aware of the switch.
