There are surprisingly few companies making their own 5G modems – and as of last week, Apple is now one of them. Their first go is the Apple C1 found inside the iPhone 16e. While Apple touted its power efficiency, the C1 does have limitations that will prevent its adoption into the more premium iPhones.
Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reports that Apple is working on a “refreshed C1” for next year, which will lift the most important limitation – the lack of mmWave support.
The current C1 supports sub-6GHz 5G only. It consists of a 4nm or 5nm baseband, 7nm low-frequency transceivers, 7nm also for…
