Apple Continues To Face Setbacks With Its In-House 5G Modem Development, With A Launch Reportedly Delayed Until Early 2026

wccftech.com:

Apple has long sought to launch its in-house 5G modems for various products, starting with the iPhone, in an effort to reduce reliance on Qualcomm as it pushes towards a custom chip development strategy. Unfortunately, the California-based giant has faced more than its fair share of roadblocks, with the latest report stating that the company continues to encounter problems with its development, pushing the launch timeline to late 2025 or early 2026.

One of the reasons why Apple renewed its 5G modem licensing agreement with Qualcomm for three more years was so that it has sufficient breathing room to continue work on its custom baseband chip. Sadly, according to Bloomberg, those efforts have been futile at this time, which is why Apple has reportedly decided to delay the launch until the end of 2025 or early 2026. As for the problems the firm is encountering, previous information stated that overheating and sub-par performance were frequently observed.

Even now, those issues have persisted, and it could take Apple years to come up with a 5G solution that could rival or even beat Qualcomm’s current-generation modems. The initial plan was to launch in-house 5G modems by 2024, but as you can see, things do not always pan out. Though development is said to be in its early stages, the current iteration does not support faster mmWave technology, with Apple also said to be running into issues with the Intel code that it was provided with.

Rewriting the code has been necessary, but adding new features has caused programs to crash and break, with Apple also having to deal with Qualcomm’s patents, avoiding any case of infringing them during any stage of the custom 5G chip’s development. Apple also tried to break Qualcomm’s monopoly by