Apple's reportedly weighing up making its own 5G antennas for new iPhones
Apple has always had a hankering to do for itself what it might otherwise have to outsource to other providers and manufacturers - that's nothing new.
Ahead of the anticipated release this autumn of Apple's first 5G iPhones (although that isn't necessarily guaranteed to happen), reports are now circulating that Apple is trying to shrink its reliance on Qualcomm, which is hardly a small player in the smartphone market.
Specifically, Apple is apparently unimpressed by the size of Qualcomm's latest antenna, the elegantly-named QTM525. This mmWave 5G-accessing antenna is seemingly a bit too large for Apple's increasingly slimline phones.
As such, Apple is supposedly making its own antenna to access mmWave 5G networking, a faster band of 5G. This would suggest that Apple might even be facing a choice - make its 2020 iPhones in its own image, and have to make the antennas itself, or stick with Qualcomm's antennas and accept a slightly thicker phone as a result. It bears mentioning that we're likely talking about fractional differences in size here.
We're not ones to look into a crystal ball on these matters, but we have to say that we reckon that Apple will still end up using Qualcomm's antenna. This murmuring could simply be a tactic to encourage Qualcomm to shrink its tech more quickly, and to remind the giant manufacturer that Apple is entirely capable of jumping ship should it need to.
After all, the lengthy lawsuit over patents that the two businesses settled in 2019 demonstrates that Apple is entirely capable of playing dirty in an attempt to further its development.
That lawsuit (and its settlement) is testament to the fact that they are likely restless bedfellows for now. That Apple could seek to build its own tech and sever its ties is no surprise.
from Pocket-lint https://ift.tt/2HrEsIV
via IFTTT
No comments: