Apple announces the development of its own cellular modem

Apple made waves with the first MacBooks powered by its own M1 processor earlier in 2020. Now, it seems the company intends to do the same with modems for cellular connectivity. One of its executives, Johny Srouji, made a statement to this effect at a recent employee meeting, according to a new Bloomberg report.

The report did not explictly mention the hardware these new own-brand modems would be destined for, although next-gen iPhones are a safe bet - with some iPads and perhaps even some laptops from the company as outside shots.

The Cupertino giant's decision to give its 5G modem business to Qualcomm effectively torpedoed Intel's own interests in the same market, causing it to sell this arm to Apple in 2019 for approximately US$1 billion. Srouji has noted that this move has allowed it to build the engineering team necessary for its new modem project.

Its implementation has had a negative effect on the maker of the Snapdragon X55 found in the iPhone 12 series. Its share price has reportedly dropped by about 4% in early New York trading today (December 11, 2020). Then again, it is not certain as yet when this new kind of Apple silicon will be ready for integration into its matching devices.