Settlement between Qualcomm and Apple is big relief for Qualcomm. Why ? Currently, Samsung,MediaTek and Huawei have there own 5G modem. Like in past, Qualcomm was only provider of cellular modem to phone manufacturers but not going forward for 5G. So, Qualcomm needs Apple as a customer more than Apple needs Qualcomm as supplier.
As Intel dropped out of 5G smartphone modem business, Intel should handover(or sell) cellular modem business to Apple and let Apple finish the final development/test of 5G modem tech. Apple uses it in it's future iPhones/iPad/Macbook/PRO. Meanwhile under new settlement/agreement Apple uses Qualcomm 5G modem until Apple has it's in-house 5G tech ready.
Nobody owns 5G except QC
All others are infringing or already paying royalties to QC
Qualcomm has landed a number of essential patents ended up making it into the 5G standard. So both phone and network makers have to pay QC licensing fee. Similarly Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson and others are also vying to amass 5G patents, which has helped spur complex cross-licensing agreements.
The more I read about 5G the less interesting it becomes. It will be super great for a fairly small number of people, only in the central region of large cities, only if you are outdoors and only if it's not raining, foggy and if there are no trees in the way of the signal. Plus now carriers are saying they will charge more for it. Looks like it will be a very long time before it becomes ubiquitous or even as useful as LTE. Apple shouldn't worry too much about not having modems available. Oh, and I understand the modem chips and the antenna are much larger than their LTE counterparts. Jony is gonna love that.
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