Apple shipping their in-house network silicon (5G cellular, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc) to their wider product line is certainly a long time coming.

I would assume this means Apple laptops with integrated cellular modems are on the near horizon.

▲ dylan604 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I've been wondering why they haven't had this before even is using 3rd party modems. Seems like an obvious play unless they feel like that would cannibalize their tablet market??

▲ walterbell 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> why they haven't had this before even is using 3rd party modems

Because Qualcomm charges a percentage of sale price for use of their modem.

https://9to5mac.com/2025/02/23/gurman-apple-modems-integrati...

▲ inkyoto 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because until the C1, Apple did not have their own, and there were not that many viable options available with Qualcomm 5G modems being the «best» (however one defines it) and the fastest albeit power hungry and running very hot at high speeds.

Outside Qualcomm, there has been a limited number of players out there, with MediaTek seeming to pick up the pace and giving Qualcomm a serious run for its money – if not now then pretty soon.

What is left is… not a lot and appears to have constraints of one sort or another:

  Samsung – with 5G-integrated Exynos SoC's. It doesn't make sense for Apple to house 2x SoC's in the same appliance;

  Huawei – they target the mainland Chinese market with its own flavour of 5G. One doesn't want their modem anyway due to national security concerns;

  Sequans Communications – they focus on the IoT market, which is a niche and has its own unique constraint space;

  Intel – they quit the 5G modem market in 2019 and sold the IP to Apple, which has given them the C1/C1X.

▲ GeekyBear 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It is odd that you've long been able to buy a cellular iPad but not a cellular MacBook.

Perhaps people who buy a MacBook are likely to have an iPhone in their pocket that will function as a hotspot and iPads are much more often used by people who are otherwise outside of Apple's ecosystem?

▲

lm28469 2 days ago | parent [-]

> Perhaps people who buy a MacBook are likely to have an iPhone in their pocket that will function as a hotspot

You don't need an iphone, even a $50 phone will hotspot just fine. How many people travel with a laptop but no phone ?

	▲	GeekyBear 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Apple cares about ease of use. If you are signed into the same Apple account on your iPhone and your MacBook, the iPhone shows up as a WiFi network option you can select without having to do any additional configuration. It's one of those "It just works" continuity features, like sharing the clipboard between your Mac and iPhone without needing to configure anything.
	▲	mrheosuper 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Hotspot eats a lot of battery. If you charge your phone 1 per day, that can make difference between getting to the end of day or not.

▲ supportengineer 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You just made my heart go pitter-patter

▲ TiredOfLife 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> I would assume this means Apple laptops with integrated cellular modems are on the near horizon.

ROFL. Apple wants to sell as much different devices to a single person as possible. What next, you expect cellular iPads to be able to make calls without tethered iPhone?