Qualcomm Defeats Apple And Wins 5G High Ground
It’s been
a busy week for those following the potential of a 5G iPhone. As the week
started, Apple was running out of options, Intel’s plans were delayed, and
Qualcomm v Apple was returning to the courtroom. There was an option for Tim
Cook but could Apple afford to have Huawei as a supplier?
…it
would require Apple to acknowledge in public that it needs a rival manufacturer
to provide cutting edge technology for the iPhone, and tacitly demonstrating
that Huawei is one of the world leaders in 5G. It would also require a darling
of the American tech industry to turn to a Chinese competitor, a competitor
that does not have the greatest of reputations in the corridors of Washington
DC.
GETTY
We’ll never know
if Cook was ready to break and accept the offer, because Tuesday saw Qualcomm
and Apple come to an agreement and all legal cases over the IP dispute were
dropped. Three hours later, Intel announced it was getting out of the 5G modem
game. Although we weren’t in the room when it happened, CNBC’s Lauren diner looked atQualcomm’s victory:
A day after settling a
multibillion-dollar battle with Apple, Qualcomm’s CEO told CNBC he looks
forward to working with the iPhone maker, but he would not disclose how much
Apple agreed to pay.
…Mollenkopf
said the company will not disclose the payment Apple agreed to in the
settlement. Following the announcement of the settlement on Tuesday, Qualcomm
said it expects incremental earnings per share of $2 as product shipments ramp
and it starts providing 5G chips to Apple.
Apple
has been left outgunned by 5G technology; Qualcomm has outmanned the opposition
to be the least-worst choice for the iPhone modem; with a raft of 5G
smartphones coming from rival manufacturers the iPhone portfolio was
outnumbered; and for all of Tim Cook’s aura of supply chain wizardry, he was
simply outplanned.
It
may not be visible to the general public, but 5G has inflicted a permanent scar
on Apple’s psyche. It is no longer the unstoppable magical innovator that can
make anything happen. The innovation comes from outside Cupertino, Tim Cook and
his team just put it in a shiny overpriced box.
Hiding The
New Ugly iPhone Design
With no
5G, what surprises will Apple have for the 2019 iPhone models? While the larger
handsets will be joining the modern trend of triple-lens cameras, the leaked
design is one of the more ugly implementations this technology. That said, will
Apple be able to mask the visual impact of the lenses? Forbes’ Gordon Kelly investigates:
…a
new report from Ming Chi-Kuo, arguably the world’s most acclaimed Apple
insider, reveals Apple’s next-gen iPhones will have such large front and back
cameras that the company will use “black lens-coating technologies” in an
attempt to make them look less “conspicuous”.
Yes,
this sounds a world apart from Apple’s famed minimalism but Kuo’s report
suggests the cameras themselves should be worth it. On the front, Kuo says
Apple’s iPhone 11 and 11 Max will have 12MP cameras with five elements, a hefty
70% increase on 7MP, four element shooters in the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR.
The iPhone
SE Sequel Is Under Development
That takes
care of the ‘Pro’ handsets, what about those at the lower end of Apple’s
expensive portfolio? It looks like Apple is working on a smaller screened
handset – and assuming it keeps the bezels as small as the iPhone X design
language, this could be the ‘small form’ handset many iPhone fans are waiting
for. Gordon Kelly investigates:
Following
reports Apple is testing a 5.42-inch iPhone to complement the 6.1-inch iPhone
XR and 6.5-inch iPhone XS Max, exclusive news the company may shrink it down
even further with a modern iPhone SE replacement of just 4.8-inches. The name?
iPhone XE.
Andwhile the report for the 5.42-inch model was light on detail, specs this
spiritual iPhone SE2 are a lot more specific. Citing a source “closely
associated with Foxconn’s manufacturing facility in India”, the reports claims
the XE will feature the same bezel-less design as the X and XS with a notch for
Face ID, a single 12MP rear camera (the primary shooter from the XS/XR) and an
A12 Bionic chip.
GETTY
The
MacBook Keyboard Problems Continue To Damage Apple
I
am stupid for buying another one of these computers, but only as stupid as any
of us are for learning to love these dumb tech products on their merits,
becoming beholden to the system, and then having a big commitment out of which
to dig ourselves (actually not very stupid at all). I’m far more inclined to
subscribe to a different argument, which is that Apple is the stupid one for
not only trying to reinvent a solution to the extremely solved problem of how
to make a working keyboard, but continuing to pretend that, four years and four
iterations later, it hasn’t utterly failed. The company declined to comment on
the record for this article.
And
Finally…
Apple’s
subscription service or gaming requires one obvious component… games. So the
news that a fund is being put aside for exclusives and developer incentives is
not a surprise, but the size of it may be. Mark Serrels reports:
Inlate March Apple announced Apple Arcade, a subscription service that allows
Apple users to play games across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV devices. Back
then Apple promised that 100 exclusive games would be playable out of the gate,
games that wouldn’t be available on other subscription services or even other
mobile devices.
But
it looks like that promise may cost them. Apple may end up spending over $500
million on the service…
