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Apple in Advanced Talks to Buy Intel’s Smartphone-Modem Chip Business

wsj.com

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Re: Apple in Advanced Talks to Buy Intel’s Smartphone-Modem Chip Business

#61

Post by yyyk »

simonh wrote: post #9

I think the real risk here is Apple sucking the profitability out of the high end modem business. Qualcomm makes most of their high end modem money out of Apple. The other flagship Android phone makers may not be a big enough market to justify Qualcomm developing the very costly high end modems they need. That could leave Apple as the only manufacturer with the best modems. We’re at least a few years away from that p…

For a long time, Apple's modems were decidedly inferiour, in fact intentionally throttled, so the 'central competitive advantage' was very much on the high-end Android side. Nobody cared.

I don't think this would be any different if Apple one ever seizes the advantage. Ultimately, no one really gets these speeds anyway due to the data carriers.

Re: Apple in Advanced Talks to Buy Intel’s Smartphone-Modem Chip Business

#62

Post by danaris »

simonh wrote: post #53
ohazi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qualcomm has prevented 20 years worth of upstarts from even attempting to enter the high-end modem business. There isn't a market for high-end modems, there's only Qualcomm. At this point, nuking Qualcomm's profitability seems like the only reasonable thing left to try.

So now instead of Qualcomm monopolising high end modems in phones, we may well end up in a situation where Apple will. Wonderful. High fives all round.

That seems very unlikely.

For one thing, Qualcomm isn't going to be ditching the modem business; they just aren't allowed to be predatory monopolists on it anymore.

For another, because Qualcomm isn't allowed to use the anticompetitive tactics they've used in the past, it will now be possible for someone else to break into that market. It'll take a lot of time, money, and effort, to be sure, but if someone else can get modems working even in the same quality ballpark as Qualcomm's, they'll have a guaranteed revenue stream from people who would be overjoyed to stick it to Qualcomm.

And, of course, at this point, there's no guarantee that Apple will be making modems for anyone but themselves.

Re: Apple in Advanced Talks to Buy Intel’s Smartphone-Modem Chip Business

#63

Post by samdoidge »

toxik wrote: post #58
ilogik wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

assuming you have an iphone, and it has plenty of battery...at one point after using the hotspot for a while my iphone showed a temperature warning, and I had to wait for it to cool off before I could use it again. Having the laptop battery and cooling would be much better

And internet sharing makes a lot more sense FROM a computer to a handheld than vice versa

You need the modem within a mobile phone, but now you're adding it to a laptop in addition. It isn't clear it makes more sense to me.

Re: Apple in Advanced Talks to Buy Intel’s Smartphone-Modem Chip Business

#64

Post by drbojingle »

tpetry wrote: post #51
jillesvangurp wrote: post #47

Interesting, Apple could do some interesting things with this. The qualcomm situation has resulted in a lot of stagnation in our industry. Companies like Apple are forced to work with them. But given their track record as being aggressive on the IP front (both sides), they have to spend a lot of effort engineering around this stuff. Companies like Intel, Qualcomm, Nokia own a lot of these patents and Apple has been p…

Theres really no great need in 4g for macbooks? I mean you can activate your wifis hotspot with handoff directly from your macbook without ever touching your iphone.

Assumes you have wifi hotspots in range and an iphone that's configured correctly with adequate battery.

Re: Apple in Advanced Talks to Buy Intel’s Smartphone-Modem Chip Business

#65

Post by achow »

phenylene wrote: post #19

Can someone explain why Intel was having such a hard time competing with Qualcomm? What are the challenges in developing modems?

This is an eye opening read..

How Qualcomm shook down the cell phone industry for almost 20 years - We did a deep-dive into the 233-page ruling declaring Qualcomm a monopolist.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/how-qualcomm-sho...

Re: Apple in Advanced Talks to Buy Intel’s Smartphone-Modem Chip Business

#67

Post by londons_explore »

samdoidge wrote: post #63
toxik wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And internet sharing makes a lot more sense FROM a computer to a handheld than vice versa

You need the modem within a mobile phone, but now you're adding it to a laptop in addition. It isn't clear it makes more sense to me.

You could argue that perhaps the computer shouldn't have built in WiFi either - after all, it could tether to a phone (via a cable or Bluetooth) to use wi-fi.

Except WiFi modems are cheap because there is lots of competition and most of the patents are easy to license, so everything has WiFi now.

Re: Apple in Advanced Talks to Buy Intel’s Smartphone-Modem Chip Business

#68

Post by scarface74 »

danaris wrote: post #62
simonh wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now instead of Qualcomm monopolising high end modems in phones, we may well end up in a situation where Apple will. Wonderful. High fives all round.

That seems very unlikely. For one thing, Qualcomm isn't going to be ditching the modem business; they just aren't allowed to be predatory monopolists on it anymore. For another, because Qualcomm isn't allowed to use the anticompetitive tactics they've used in the past, it will now be possible for someone else to break into that market. It'll take a lot of time, money, and effort, to be sure, but if someone else can g…

The thing is that the entire high end Android market is much smaller than the iPhone market. Qualcomm won’t have any incentive to invest a lot of money in high end modems if Apple is not a customer. You’re seeing the same thing on a much smaller scale play out in the wearables market. The only company producing enough watches to make an investment in the processors required is Apple.

Of course Apple isn’t going to make modems for anyone but themselves.

Re: Apple in Advanced Talks to Buy Intel’s Smartphone-Modem Chip Business

#69

Post by londons_explore »

mrweasel wrote: post #50
bpye wrote: post #2

This worries me. Wouldn't this leave us with Qualcomm once again the only manafacturer of cellular modems for everyone else? I somehow doubt Apple would keep supplying the Intel parts to any other OEMs.

As others pointed out, there are other modem manufactures. The interesting bit is whether or not Apple would allow other manufacturers to buy their modems. I don't think it makes a ton of sense for Apple to resell their A-series CPUs, but 4G modems is a little different, they're more generic. If they manage to make good modems why wouldn't they sell them to others? The people buying iPhones won't switch to an Android…

If apple buys the modem division, they'll be integrating the modem into the SoC. It will be an advanced process node and they won't be scared of using more silicon area to get more performance. By being on the same SoC, they might combine the application and baseband CPU's into one too using something like trustzone.

Cheapo android handset makers wouldn't be able to afford the resulting silicon - it'll be too expensive due to the large area. It'll also likely diverge from the way everyone else builds modems - no more AT commands!

Re: Apple in Advanced Talks to Buy Intel’s Smartphone-Modem Chip Business

#70

Post by ubermonkey »

ilogik wrote: post #54
tpetry wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres really no great need in 4g for macbooks? I mean you can activate your wifis hotspot with handoff directly from your macbook without ever touching your iphone.

assuming you have an iphone, and it has plenty of battery...at one point after using the hotspot for a while my iphone showed a temperature warning, and I had to wait for it to cool off before I could use it again. Having the laptop battery and cooling would be much better

Man, I use the hotspot function of my iPhone all the time and never have heat issues. I wonder why?
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