WSJ: Next-gen iPhone will have 'around the world' LTE functionality
A Wall Street Journal report on Friday claims Apple's upcoming iPhone will boast global 4G LTE support, a function that will no doubt make the next-generation handset more desirable for international jet setters who crave fast data speeds.
Citing people familiar with Apple's plans, the WSJ notes the next-gen iPhone will boast compatibility with 4G LTE networks in the U.S., Europe and Asia, though the functionality may not be available to all countries and carriers at launch.
Analysts and pundits alike have speculated that the new iPhone, tentatively being called "iPhone 5," will be able to operate on worldwide LTE networks, a feature that rivals like Samsung have recently implemented in their latest smartphones.
Apple released its first LTE-equipped product with the third-generation iPad, however the device was only compatible with Verizon and AT&T in the U.S., and Bell Canada, Rogers Communications in Canada. The New iPad caused a small fracas in Australia, however, as Apple advertised the tablet as being "4G" despite not being compatible with the country's existing high-speed networks.
It was reported in May that Apple would likely use Qualcomm's LTE baseband chip built on the 28nm process.
The sixth-generation iPhone is widely expected to make its debut at a Sept. 12 special event, for which Apple sent out invitations earlier this week.
Citing people familiar with Apple's plans, the WSJ notes the next-gen iPhone will boast compatibility with 4G LTE networks in the U.S., Europe and Asia, though the functionality may not be available to all countries and carriers at launch.
Analysts and pundits alike have speculated that the new iPhone, tentatively being called "iPhone 5," will be able to operate on worldwide LTE networks, a feature that rivals like Samsung have recently implemented in their latest smartphones.
Apple released its first LTE-equipped product with the third-generation iPad, however the device was only compatible with Verizon and AT&T in the U.S., and Bell Canada, Rogers Communications in Canada. The New iPad caused a small fracas in Australia, however, as Apple advertised the tablet as being "4G" despite not being compatible with the country's existing high-speed networks.
It was reported in May that Apple would likely use Qualcomm's LTE baseband chip built on the 28nm process.
The sixth-generation iPhone is widely expected to make its debut at a Sept. 12 special event, for which Apple sent out invitations earlier this week.
Comments
What about down under mate?
Quote:
Originally Posted by GadgetCanada
What about down under mate?
It'll be the "I can't believe it's not 4G!" cellular, cobber.
It'll be interesting to see what sort of real performance increase we'll see with LTE, which was just switched on in my market yesterday.
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I've mentioned many times this year the potential issues with this and wondered if Apple would finally have to launch multiple iPhones for different markets because of the operating bands, or if Qualcomm and Apple were able to work out a way for many (at least 6) power amps and other chips to exist together on a single Gobi chip for LTE.
Serious dumb question: why does a different band need a different power amp, rather than just a different modulator or whatever?
Serious dumb answer: I don't know. I only know that there have been different power amps (from Triquent for 3G?) that have associated with different operating bands. I'm hoping this is no longer the case and they will use a chip that can adjust the frequency for various markets so we can finally get past this. It's great that LTE is so well adopted going forward but without a simpler way to support all those operating bands it's still not going to be pretty.
Originally Posted by 69ergoo
Apple owns patent troll Rockstarbidco…
Nope. That's not Apple. That's Apple, Nokia, Microsoft, et. al.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
I've mentioned many times this year the potential issues with this and wondered if Apple would finally have to launch multiple iPhones for different markets because of the operating bands, or if Qualcomm and Apple were able to work out a way for many (at least 6) power amps and other chips to exist together on a single Gobi chip for LTE.
Could they be using the same Qualcomm chipset as Nokia with their new Lumia 920?
It provides:
LTE 800
LTE 900
LTE 1800
LTE 2100
LTE 2600
That covers most of the current LTE deployments except the US/Canada. You'd need to add 2100/1700 and 700 for US support. Therefore I'd venture a guess that they'll release two different devices if they want LTE worldwide. One with the iPad chipset and another with the world (excluding NA) chipset for LTE. True worldwide connectivity would then be provided by the WCDMA chipset.
Like you, I don't believe we're at the level where we could ship a device with all the above mentioned frequencies in one device. If they do ship a device with all those bands (maybe without the oddball 900), that would be a positive surprise and a first time Apple would be pushing the boundaries of the actual physical layer of 2G/3G/4G.
Didn't know Huddler allowed for MagicEye. That's some spiffy new tech…
Gosh dang it, man. Oh, here's the code for that if anyone wants to recreate it…
<p style="padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 14px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: url(http://r.nokia.com/s/6.0/assets/images/nokia/nk-blue-bullet-small.png?v=6.0.7); line-height: 1.65em; background-position: 4px 6px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; ">
I mean… wh… what would possess any site to do…
Penta-band is certainly better than the dual-band LTE the current iPad has.
They will have to support different LTE bands than the Lumia 920. The iPad has 700 and 2100 for AT&T. The Verizon model has 700 (they couldn't even get 3 bands on the same iPad earlier this year) but I think those are different operating bands within the 700MHz frequency band, but I'm not certain.
Amazon's announcement yesterday mentioned some homegrown chipset that had deca-band support. Now they talked about LTE but I'm not sure if they meant that all 10 bands are to LTE or just the different bands across EDGE, UMTS, and LTE, which the current iPad already exceeds.
It's hard to believe Apple would have a different iPhone for each market but it's finally time to introduce LTE now that the 3rd gen LTE chips (2nd gen Gobi LTE chips) are here. Tech doesn't always line up the way we want it so if they have to do a split for a year or two i could see it, but I'm hoping and guessing that won't be the case.
edit: Here is what I mean by operating bands. It's a bit confusing but you get an idea about the complexity and range for carriers and countries.
Originally Posted by waybacmac
I have a bad feeling about this introduction. A somewhat bigger screen, LTE that may or may not work world-wide--is that all there is? I know that the 4S was initially met with skepticism yet was still a big success; but as much as I like Apple products, and I'm sure this will be a good phone, I feel this iPhone is more catch-up than leading-the-way. I hope I'm wrong.
Apparently everyone has forgotten how the 4S was the fastest phone on the market at launch. And how it sold more than every iPhone before it combined. Despite being "the exact same phone as last year".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Apparently everyone has forgotten how the 4S was the fastest phone on the market at launch. And how it sold more than every iPhone before it combined. Despite being "the exact same phone as last year".
The world moves on though. The Galaxy S 3 is now the best selling phone, and that's just one Android phone out of a choice of hundreds.
For Apple to finally support LTE outside of America (I realise it must be a shock for Apple to discover there are actually other countries in the world) would obviously be a plus, but over the past year larger screens have become standard. When I compare my iPhone 4 to a current Android phone it looks like a toy, so tiny and yet so fat. If rumours are to be believed the i5 won't have NFC, which just seems bizarre. Does nobody in Apple ever travel to Japan? Do they not realise how big a deal NFC is there?
I'm sure the iPhone 5 will sell well, but nobody stays on top forever, at least not without trying very hard, and Apple have sadly gone from leading the smart phone world (in terms of innovation) to playing perpetual catch-up. They've become complacent.
Originally Posted by kotatsu
The world moves on though. The Galaxy S 3 is now the best selling phone
And it only took them eleven months, too. So let's give them a hand. As we slap them across the face and kick them out the door since the 6th iPhone is being released.
Unless Apple starts to pay Samsung for licensing agreements, Apple will be the one that gets a slap across the face when the iPhone5 launches.
The top 4 LTE patent holders are Samsung with 1177 patents, Qualcomm 710, Panasonic 389, InterDigital 336. Nokia, Ericsson & LG less than 300 each. The consortium, that included Apple and others, acquired Nortel's 152 LTE patents.
"Samsung, long recognized as a devices company, invested in network and infrastructure developments well ahead of the curve, and has emerged as a leading 4G patent holder in several key categories. Interestingly, Apple, one of Samsung’s key competitors, holds few 4G patents, and currently licenses 4G capabilities for its new iPad. With Apple’s relatively lower patent protection in 4G, and Samsung’s dominance, the marketplace may well shift."
"Samsung is at the forefront of 4G-LTE domain with significant number of patents, including seminal patents. It leads the core 4G-LTE technology that relate to Data Transfer Rate, Power Management and Spectral Efficiency." Who keeps saying the Koreans don't know how to innovate?
"Apple has minimal patents in the 4G-LTE domain. In 2011, Apple joined hands with Ericsson, RIM, Microsoft and EMC to form a consortium and successfully bid for Nortel’s 6000 patents. This possibly includes complete ownership of Nortel’s 4G-LTE patents."
"Apple is currently using 4G-LTE technology from Qualcomm for its iPad 3 – a baseband processor which provides the LTE wireless data networking capability.
In March 2012, a day after the launch of iPad 3, Adaptix Inc. filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple in the field of OFDMA technology (related to 4G)."
http://www.i-runway.com/images/pdf/iRunway - Patent & Landscape Analysis of 4G-LTE.pdf
Quote:
Originally Posted by kotatsu
The world moves on though. The Galaxy S 3 is now the best selling phone, and that's just one Android phone out of a choice of hundreds.
For Apple to finally support LTE outside of America (I realise it must be a shock for Apple to discover there are actually other countries in the world) would obviously be a plus, but over the past year larger screens have become standard. When I compare my iPhone 4 to a current Android phone it looks like a toy, so tiny and yet so fat. If rumours are to be believed the i5 won't have NFC, which just seems bizarre. Does nobody in Apple ever travel to Japan? Do they not realise how big a deal NFC is there?
I'm sure the iPhone 5 will sell well, but nobody stays on top forever, at least not without trying very hard, and Apple have sadly gone from leading the smart phone world (in terms of innovation) to playing perpetual catch-up. They've become complacent.
Your tearful concerns have been dutifully noted. ????
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Apparently everyone has forgotten how the 4S was the fastest phone on the market at launch. And how it sold more than every iPhone before it combined. Despite being "the exact same phone as last year".
Um.. there were already LTE phones on the market when it was released last year, so it was hardly the fastest. It's nonsense fanboy posts like this that make anything you say hard to agree with.