Every time a new MacBook Pro is released, I check to see if they have figured out how to put a modem in it like they manage to with watches, phones, and tablets. This is an obvious example where the market is failing.<p>The best explanation I heard is that the Apple deal with Qualcomm pays Qualcomm a royalty as a function of the price of the device and Apple does not want to give that much money to Qualcomm and/or raise the price of a MacBook Pro that much. Does anyone have any evidence on this topic?
“Apple had planned to have its modem chip ready to use in the new iPhone models. But tests late last year found the chip was too slow and prone to overheating. Its circuit board was so big it would take up half an iPhone, making it unusable.”<p>How is this even possible? I mean I get it’s hard but a 3 inch modem chip? lol
What’s the fundamental reason why SOTA modems are more challenging than microprocessors for Apple? Intuitively I would’ve guessed the opposite was true.
I would like to point out that creating modem chips is probably way harder than it seems. It requires knowledge not available to mere mortals. Can you design a new ARM chip with a GPU? Great, you are at most a demi-god. You probably have to be true master of the Universe to be able to design real RF chips.<p>Working with RF seems to be a completely different game than high frequency digital circuitry. When you work with high frequency digital signals you are kind of touching RF stuff, but it is more like you do things that "are known to work" rather than completely understanding everything that is happening.
"Spectacular failure" is a bit hyperbolic to me. They are taking steps to move away from Qualcomm, and it seems their first real go at it resulted in a lackluster product. It's not like Apple actually shipped their phones with that lackluster chip, they decided "hey, didn't work out this go-around". I'm sure they'll get there in another year or so.
Spectacular and catastrophic business destroying world ending no good knee to the furniture corner poke your eye and step on a rusty nail failure I must say.