Apple May Not Have 5G Phone Until 2021

[BigBlueYeti]

It appears that Apple may have issues sourcing 5G modems and may not be able to bring a 5G phone to market in 2020, which could see them lose market share to those consumers wanting to stay current with the lastest technologies. 

 

According to this article on 9To5Mac a UBS analyst has stated that :

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Apple is in deep legal disputes with the leading 5G modem manufacturer, Qualcomm. Apple moved away from Qualcomm modems starting with the iPhone 7 and the iPhone XS and iPhone XR series uses Intel modems exclusively.

 

In court proceedings earlier this year, Apple executives said that it would prefer to dual-source modems from both Qualcomm and Intel, but Qualcomm is refusing to supply Apple with chips as the legal battles continue. Therefore, without a settlement soon, sourcing a 5G chip from Qualcomm is off the table. Apple’s ongoing court cases also revealed that the company was exploring 5G options as early as 2016.

 

The obvious partner for Apple is Intel. However, Intel’s 5G modem roadmap is not bearing much fruit currently. Intel has said it aims to release 5G chipsets by the end of next year.

 

Also this article from GSMArena which quotes the above article plus this (Mandarin) article from Taiwan's Electronic Times as sources states:

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Taiwan’s Electronic Times reports that both Qualcomm and Samsung have turned down the opportunity to supply 5G modems for Apple. Given the global patent war between Apple and Qualcomm, the San Diego company’s snub is not a huge surprise.

Samsung, however, reportedly gave another reason – not enough supply of its Exynos 51005G modem. Even if Samsung could boost production capacity, it will have leverage over Apple in the negotiations

 

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Then there’s Huawei’s Balong 5000 modem. However, like the Kirin chipsets, Huawei is reluctant to sell its chips to other companies. UniSOC (which you may remember as Spreadtrum) is also working on a 5G modem (after parting ways with Intel), but it’s not clear how far along it is, so it’s not an option.

This could leave the door open for MediaTek, which has been angling to get the Helio M70modem into iPhones, going as far as accelerating the shipping schedule by six months.

UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri published a report earlier today that paints an even grimmer picture. He says that the MediaTek chip isn't up to Apple standards and claims that Samsung is an unlikely option as well.

Worse still, the report suggests that Intel's timeframe for its 5G modem will be too late for next year's iPhones. With Apple's once-a-year release schedule, this will push the first 5G-connected iPhone to late 2021.

 

Things could start to get grim for Apple. With ever inflating prices and flagging sales, could this be enough to push bleeding edge tech enthusiasts and non die-hard iPhone fans toward (slightly) more affordable 5G Android phones. And once those defectors have committed and put their money into the Android eco-system will Apple ever be able to win them back. It could be that Apple is left only with brand loyalists and those who are already in the iPhone eco-system and don't care about being up to date with the lastest technologies, which will surely be more than enough to ensure their survival, but will it be enough to keep the name iPhone as synonymous with flagship smartphone as it is today. 

[TrigrH]

2021 is probs about the time 5G will be widespread and affordable enough to consider bothering with it anyway?

[PlayStation 2]

5G is barely a thing right now. I dunno why people are trying to spell this as "the end" for Apple when hardly anyone has been able to adopt it yet.

Now, if Apple is having trouble sourcing 5G modems in a few years down the line, where adoption is a lot higher, THEN it'd make more sense.

[JoeCoke]

It's gonna take 5G until then to be accessible anyway, so who really cares? I have plenty of other reasons to not use iPhones to worry about something minor like this.

[r2724r16]

22 minutes ago, BigBlueYeti said:

It appears that Apple may have issues sourcing 5G modems and may not be able to bring a 5G phone to market in 2020

BIG DEAL!!!

 

/s who cares about 5G

[Bouzoo]

There are too many problematic factors with 5G:

1. Coverage is nonexistent and even the tests were done all around the world, there are still issues with releasing it for the masses. There always are
2. Phones that support it are even more so nonexistent
3. Even if phones existed, there is the usual issue of 1st gen modems

The only problem with this that I see is that when 2nd gen of 5G launches, Apple will have their first phone out, so they won't have the time to improve issues which they might have noticed if they had 5G ready phones with 1st gen 5G. 

[LanceG]

25 minutes ago, BigBlueYeti said:

It appears that Apple may have issues sourcing 5G modems and may not be able to bring a 5G phone to market in 2020, which could see them lose market share to those consumers wanting to stay current with the lastest technologies. 

 

According to this article on 9To5Mac a UBS analyst has stated that :

 

Also this article from GSMArena which quotes the above article plus this (Mandarin) article from Taiwan's Electronic Times as sources states:

 

 

Things could start to get grim for Apple. With ever inflating prices and flagging sales, could this be enough to push bleeding edge tech enthusiasts and non die-hard iPhone fans toward (slightly) more affordable 5G Android phones. And once those defectors have committed and put their money into the Android eco-system will Apple ever be able to win them back. It could be that Apple is left only with brand loyalists and those who are already in the iPhone eco-system and don't care about being up to date with the lastest technologies, which will surely be more than enough to ensure their survival, but will it be enough to keep the name iPhone as synonymous with flagship smartphone as it is today. 

Apple will be successful for many years to come regardless of their product's quality or capabilities.

The only reason they are where they are now is due to clout.

Think about it, Wireless earphones were on the market long before AirPods were released by Apple, but even though Apple's version of them are more expensive, they have gotten a major portion of the wireless earphone market.

You can disagree, but that is my viewpoint on how Apple's company will act in years to come.

[79wjd]

As someone who had a 4G phone as soon as the network "supported" one, who the fuck cares. Coverage will be abysmal and the technology will still be going through major growing pains.

[Bouzoo]

24 minutes ago, 79wjd said:

As someone who had a 4G phone as soon as the network "supported" one, who the fuck cares. Coverage will be abysmal and the technology will still be going through major growing pains.

To be fair, the approach for implementing 5G is one a more serious scale than 4G was, based on most info that I got from colleagues at Ericsson and the carrier that I work for (part of Deutsche Telekom). It will still be a year or two to get "real" 5G, same as 4G, but the coverage should be much better this time around. Not that that is an achievement to begin with. 

[Chett_Manly]

1 hour ago, 79wjd said:

As someone who had a 4G phone as soon as the network "supported" one, who the fuck cares. Coverage will be abysmal and the technology will still be going through major growing pains.

This year I'd agree. Yet when Sept 2020 rolls around coverage will be in most major metro areas. And you will have second generation modems from Qualcomm. Not having it for Holiday 2020 is going to be a considerable disadvantage.

[79wjd]

5 minutes ago, Chett_Manly said:

This year I'd agree. Yet when Sept 2020 rolls around coverage will be in most major metro areas. And you will have second generation modems from Qualcomm. Not having it for Holiday 2020 is going to be a considerable disadvantage.

I wouldn't put so much faith in things coming together even in major metro areas. I live in NYC, and 4G was still abysmal for years.

[Drak3]

And in 2022, fanboys will claim that Apple were the first and basically created it.

[Guest]

If you think that Apple users care about the latest technology and performance - you haven’t been paying attention.

[D13H4RD]

This won't be the first time though. 

 

When 4G LTE first came, Apple was still on HSPA+. By the time the iPhone 5 with LTE support came in, it was already ubiquitous. 

[williamcll]

No need to rush things anyway, let all the new 5G phones stumble first.

[mr moose]

It's actually is important for 5g devices to get into the market as soon as possible.  The whole industry is a horse and cart conundrum,  no incentive to rapidly deploy a service with no consumer base and no consumer base can exist until devices are deployed on the service.

 

Whether we care about apple or not doesn't matter, you need a consumer uptake to drive the network upgrades.

[Redrooster]

imagine using an iPhone

[TechGod]

9 hours ago, LanceG said:

Apple will be successful for many years to come regardless of their product's quality or capabilities.

The only reason they are where they are now is due to clout.

Think about it, Wireless earphones were on the market long before AirPods were released by Apple, but even though Apple's version of them are more expensive, they have gotten a major portion of the wireless earphone market.

You can disagree, but that is my viewpoint on how Apple's company will act in years to come.

Nice job ignoring what makes Airpods totally unique though. 

[TechGod]

5 hours ago, floofer said:

If you think that Apple users care about the latest technology and performance - you haven’t been paying attention.

Well they might not but Apple certainly does as they maintain super high performing chips in their A series of chipsets.

[suicidalfranco]

Apple fanboys 2019: 5G is a gimmick

Apple fanboys 2021: Apple has done it again! revolutionary!!!

[IntMD]

To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't buy an iPhone ever as I really don't like iOS, but I don't see the problem with this at all. Like others have said 5G while available this year in certain places, it is going to be 2020 at the earliest it starts to become properly ubituitous and should be decent coverage in many places by 2021. In the meantime, anyone starting to use 5G should take a little bit of pressure off 4G and might boost average speeds because of this anyway.

[Sparviero]

until data plans evolve what is the point?

[DrMacintosh]

In current year (2019) 5G exists on 1 phone and you need an expansion mod to even get that working. Service is available in like 2 cities which aren’t even that big. 

 

In 2020 I imagine the amount of cities with 5G will slightly increase, but it will be far from widespread. 

 

By 2021 5G will have spread to the major cities like New York, LA, and San Francisco. Then and only then will a phone with a 5G modem be a selling point imo. 

 

 

[Fasauceome]

15 hours ago, BigBlueYeti said:

However, Intel’s 5G modem roadmap is not bearing much fruit currently.

Naturally.

[mr moose]

5 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

In current year (2019) 5G exists on 1 phone and you need an expansion mod to even get that working. Service is available in like 2 cities which aren’t even that big. 

 

In 2020 I imagine the amount of cities with 5G will slightly increase, but it will be far from widespread. 

 

By 2021 5G will have spread to the major cities like New York, LA, and San Francisco. Then and only then will a phone with a 5G modem be a selling point imo. 

 

 

5G has been available in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth, towoomba and the goldcoast (187 sites) since last year.

 

We are waiting for phones to come out so we can use the system. 

 

https://www.telstra.com.au/aboutus/media/media-releases/Telstra_launches_first_5G_Melbourne_and_Sydney_sites