Apple Is Designing iPhones, iPads That Would Drop Qualcomm Components (wsj.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source): Apple, locked in an intensifying legal fight with Qualcomm, is designing iPhones and iPads for next year that would jettison the chipmaker's components, according to people familiar with the matter. Apple is considering building the devices only with modem chips from Intel and possibly MediaTek because San Diego, Calif.-based Qualcomm has withheld software critical to testing its chips in iPhone and iPad prototypes, according to one of the people. Apple's planned move for next year involve the modem chips that handle communications between wireless devices and cellular networks. Qualcomm is by far the biggest supplier of such chips for the current wireless standard. The Apple plans indicate the battle with Qualcomm could spill beyond the courtroom feud over patents into another important Qualcomm business where it has the potential to send ripples through the smartphone supply chain.

Comments

Re:Qualcomm deserve to die

[Luthair]

There is a reason Qualcomm is in the position they are - they did a lot of R&D and pushed cellular forward. On the other hand Apple has done what, "invent" round corners?

Re:Qualcomm deserve to die

[Just Some Guy]

It's not like they design their own CPUs or anything. That'd be crazytalk!

So Apple designs almost every component in an iPhone except for the radio. Qualcomm thinks they're entitled to a percent of the whole device price because... well, I don't know. Because they're special or something. Is their magic radio really more valuable to an iPhone than to a cheap Android? Of course not. But they continue to want to charge Apple several times more for the exact same price just because they (think they) can. I can't imagine a plausible scenario in which Apple wouldn't design Qualcomm out of their supply line. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if they turned around and offered to license their non-Qualcomm radio at cost to anyone else who wants to use it.