Apple once again plans to ditch Qualcomm chips, analyst says

Over the last year, Apple has reportedly stopped and restarted the production of a house-made chip for their flagship product, the iPhone. The Silicon Valley giant was reportedly producing its own 5G modem that would replace the Qualcomm chips currently found in the iPhone.

Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said for several months that Apple’s attempts at creating a 5G chip were futile, but now Kuo says Apple’s homemade chip will debut in the next iPhone SE and is expected to be released next year.

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Kuo predicts that the iPhone SE 4 will include Apple’s 5G modem and will turn up with a list of improvements and changes. The analyst says the iPhone SE 4 will resemble the iPhone 14 base model, featuring a 6.1-inch OLED display, a big difference from its predecessor’s 4.7-inch LCD display.

By switching to an OLED display, the new iPhone SE could have higher image contrast, higher image quality, lower power consumption, faster refresh rates, a more comprehensive color range, and a thinner display. 

Kuo says it’s possible that the iPhone SE 4 will release in March of 2024 and may receive an upgrade to Face ID, making the iPhone SE 3 the last iPhone made with a Home button and Touch ID.

Just last month, Kuo said that they believed Apple canceled their plans to develop a fourth iteration of the iPhone SE, pointing to the possibility that Apple’s 5G chip technology was still underdeveloped. However, at this year’s MWC conference, Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said he expects Apple’s latest chip to be ready as early as next year. 

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Amon’s announcement made Kuo conclude that a new iPhone SE would, in fact, be the product that Apple would use to test its chip’s performance. 

According to analysts and reporting by MacRumors, Apple plans to test its new chip on only a few products. Until the company is confident in its unique technology, it’s still believed that Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X70 modem will be found in the iPhone 15 models. 

According to MacRumors, placing Apple’s new modem in less popular items like the iPad or iPhone SE is a strong possibility. Should the new iPhone SE perform well technologically and financially, Apple devices that are less technologically demanding, like Apple Watches and iPads, will use Apple’s modems in the future.