For the last few years, Apple has been on a quest to end its reliance on iPhone components from other companies. The latest bit to get the ax looks to be the cellular modem chip, and a switch to an Apple-made part looks imminent.
Currently, Qualcomm makes the modems in your iPhone, but a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claims that Apple’s in-house modem will debut in 2025.
The first iPhone to feature this new modem will reportedly be the iPhone SE 4, which is expected to launch in the spring of next year. However, Gurman claims that the first version of Apple’s modem will be much weaker than the currently available Qualcomm chip.
Simply, the modem on your smartphone enables the handset to connect to cell towers so it can make calls and connect to the internet over cellular.
Apple wants to surpass Qualcomm by 2027 with increasingly “more advanced” chips, according to the Bloomberg story.
Gurman gets more in-depth in the history of Apple’s modem development but briefly, Apple has been working on this project since at least 2021, having spent billions including acquiring Intel‘s modem group and hundreds of engineers.
Interestingly, the first version of the modem, codenamed Sinope, won’t be in the flagship iPhone 17 models next year. Instead, it will launch with the iPhone SE 4. The new modem also may feature in the much-rumored iPhone 17 Air and lower-end iPads. It appears the SE 4 will be a real test for Apple’s in-house modem.
Sinope won’t support mmWave, a 5G technology that can handle large download speeds. Instead, it’s supposed to feature a Sub-6Ghz standard that’s featured on the current iPhone SE, which debuted in 2022.
Allegedly, because this new modem will be more integrated with Apple’s iPhone systems, it will be more efficient, use less power and better support network connections, despite its downgraded connectivity.
Like much of Apple’s chip components, Sinope is going to be produced by TSM, who also make the Apple-designed A-series of processors.
According to the report, Apple-built modems will feature in more products in 2026, including the iPhone 18. iPad Pros are slated to feature a third-generation modem by 2027. By then, Apple’s modem should support mmWave and bigger download speeds.
Gurman briefly noted that Apple is considering merging the modem and main processor as one component.
With advancing processors and capabilities the iPhone is a powerful device, it will be interesting to see what effect the modem switch will have on Apple’s devices.
