Qualcomm swears it’s not worried about Apple making its own iPhone modems

When we look back on the iPhone 16e years from now, the thing we’ll all remember is that it was the first iPhone to use Apple’s own modem. Even though the two companies have a testy relationship, Apple has historically relied on Qualcomm for modems. The C1 chip in the iPhone 16e is Apple’s first step toward breaking up with Qualcomm. Qualcomm, however, says it’s not worried about the competition posed by Apple’s foray into modems… At Mobile World Congress 2025 this week, Qualcomm unveiled its new X85 5G modem, as reported by my colleagues at 9to5Google. It’s an impressive modem with peak speeds of 12.5 Gbps up and 3.7 Gbps down. It also features a new “5G AI processor” that apparently leads to 30% faster inference. In an interview with CNBC this week, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said that this new X85 5G modem “It’s the first modem that has so much AI, it actually increases the range of performance of the modem so the modem can deal with weaker signals. What that will do will set ... Read full article.