Apple confirmed limiting iPhone 7 Qualcomm modem to keep performance on par with Intel chip

2

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 45
    jfc1138jfc1138 Posts: 3,090member
    By the way the headline is misleading since it implies that Apple confirmed this.  
    Apple is confirmed, not Apple has confirmed ;-)
    Would have been nice if they'd expended the extra "ink" eh? But the click bait wouldn't be as tasty. 
    edited November 2016 mattinozrandominternetpersoncornchip
  • Reply 22 of 45
    sirozha said:
    mejsric said:
    By the way the headline is misleading since it implies that Apple confirmed this.  
    Apple is confirmed, not Apple has confirmed ;-)
    There's no "is" 

    jfc1138 said:
    Apple "confirmed "NOTHING!   Total B. S. headline. 
    You must not be a native speaker of English. The caption means "Apple is confirmed limiting  . . ." Which means that "someone else has confirmed that Apple is limiting . . . "

    The reason that you are not seeing "is" in the caption is due to the fact that in news captions or headlines, it is customary to drop modal verbs, which has been a newspaper and magazine tradition for over a hundred years in most English language publications around the world. 
    "Apple is confirmed limiting..." doesn't make any sense either. That sounds terrible. The headline really is misleading. 
    mattinozmejsricwilliamlondonduervonetmageMaurizio
  • Reply 23 of 45
    mattinozmattinoz Posts: 2,299member
    Do these network speed up features you speak of require additional patent fess? 
    Secondly getting out of the US centric mode does this effect any other networks world-wide?

    Thirdly given this is at best a rumour not fact checked news by any measure shouldn't you avoid using 100 year old conventions if they lead to miss leading headlines?
  • Reply 24 of 45
    I have Speedtest on my iPhone and have since 2010. It keeps a record of all your results, which I usually do a few times after I get my new iPhone, at a couple locations (like home, work or on the road).

    One thing I know for sure is my Intel modem iPhone 7 Plus has recorded the fastest results of every iPhone I've had (and since the iPhone 4 I've had a new iPhone every year). I don't know if there's any throttling on the Qualcomm or if the Intel one actually is slower in the real world. All I know is mine is faster than my previous iPhones.

    Couple that with Apples superior A10 processor, their superior (and the only one using it) NVMe storage and their superior software and I'm stuck using the fastest phone on the planet. I'm soooooooo disappointed I'm stuck using this inferior POS iPhone with that garbage Intel modem.
    brian greenpscooter63netmagewatto_cobra
  • Reply 25 of 45
    bluefire1bluefire1 Posts: 1,301member
    So Apple has throttled QCOM modems in the name of parity. Why not instead get after Intel to upgrade their modems to be capable of reaching 600 megabits per second instead of diminishing what QCOM's modem was capable of offering.
  • Reply 26 of 45
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    bluefire1 said:
    So Apple has throttled QCOM modems in the name of parity. Why not instead get after Intel to upgrade their modems to be capable of reaching 600 megabits per second instead of diminishing what QCOM's modem was capable of offering.
    For the same reason Apple doesn't "get after" Intel to make mobile chipsets that can support more than 16GB of RAM: Intel has grown lazy and fat, like Microsoft during the Ballmer years. 
    capasicumpscooter63cpsrowatto_cobra
  • Reply 27 of 45
    sirozha said:
    mejsric said:
    By the way the headline is misleading since it implies that Apple confirmed this.  
    Apple is confirmed, not Apple has confirmed ;-)
    There's no "is" 

    jfc1138 said:
    Apple "confirmed "NOTHING!   Total B. S. headline. 
    You must not be a native speaker of English. The caption means "Apple is confirmed limiting  . . ." Which means that "someone else has confirmed that Apple is limiting . . . "

    The reason that you are not seeing "is" in the caption is due to the fact that in news captions or headlines, it is customary to drop modal verbs, which has been a newspaper and magazine tradition for over a hundred years in most English language publications around the world. 
    I completely agree that the headline could be read as "Apple [is] confirmed [to be] limiting ..." (and that's what the headline writer no doubt meant), but the most straightforward reading is "Apple confirmed [that it is] limiting ..."  Hence, it's misleading.
    edited November 2016 duervonetmageavon b7
  • Reply 28 of 45
    Not exactly "proof," but I suppose it's plausible.  It's not like Apple advertises the internal components so it is free to "hobble" parts from one supplier to make it behave like parts from another.  I still want to know why it appears that the Galaxy phone can download images twice as fast as the latest iPhone with the same modem.  Could be a bogus test, I suppose.
    Oh now you change your tune. 
    No, not really.  I said "I'll eat my hat and sell my AAPL shares if anyone finds a shred of proof that this was caused by Apple intentionally hobbling their phones so that Verizon doesn't make AT&T look bad."  This followup story (unconfirmed by any real sources) suggests that Apple is doing it for other reasons.  This makes sense to me.  This isn't any different than if Apple contracted with two vendors to supply a part that can supply 10 megawiggles/second and one supplier sends parts that can run at up to 12 mw/s.  It would be reasonable for Apple to clock both at 10 mw/s for consistency sake.  Has nothing to do with which network it's running on.
    netmage
  • Reply 29 of 45

    sirozha said:
    I noticed that when I upgraded my Verizon iPhone 7 (which I'm using on AT&T) from 10.0.3 to 10.1, my download speed dropped by almost 50%. I tested my iPhone 7 download speed on ATT right next to my wife's iPhone 6s. I definitely witnessed a dramatic worsening of the download speed after upgrading my iPhone 7 to iOS 10.1, whereas my wife's iPhone 6s, which stayed on iOS 10.0.2, maintained the same download speed. So, I know the issue was not with the cell tower. 

    I was fortunate to have beeen able to downgrade to 10.0.3 the following day, and after the downgrade, the download speed returned to where it was before I upgraded, which is about 120 Mbps on the iPhone 7. 

    I wonder if Apple started throttling Qualcom modems in iOS 10.1.  
    This also raises the possibility that this slowdown is a bug.
  • Reply 30 of 45
    That's just simply not true! It's not a fact, it a rumor! 
    randominternetpersonhmm
  • Reply 31 of 45

    sirozha said:
    I noticed that when I upgraded my Verizon iPhone 7 (which I'm using on AT&T) from 10.0.3 to 10.1, my download speed dropped by almost 50%. I tested my iPhone 7 download speed on ATT right next to my wife's iPhone 6s. I definitely witnessed a dramatic worsening of the download speed after upgrading my iPhone 7 to iOS 10.1, whereas my wife's iPhone 6s, which stayed on iOS 10.0.2, maintained the same download speed. So, I know the issue was not with the cell tower. 

    I was fortunate to have beeen able to downgrade to 10.0.3 the following day, and after the downgrade, the download speed returned to where it was before I upgraded, which is about 120 Mbps on the iPhone 7. 

    I wonder if Apple started throttling Qualcom modems in iOS 10.1.  
    This also raises the possibility that this slowdown is a bug.
    I reported this to Apple the same day once I realized that iOS 10.1 reduced my Qualcomm modem iPhone 7 download speeds almost in half, and the downgrade to 10.0.3 restored the full download speed. I requested that an engineer call me back to do further testing (the cell tower is within 100 yards from my house). Apple told me that no one would be calling me back about this. I've tried to google this but found no reference mentioning a similar experience. That was a month ago or so. 
    edited November 2016 duervo
  • Reply 32 of 45
    ksecksec Posts: 1,569member
    It is not only the modem, you also need to take into account of others like antenna design, amplifier, receivers etc

    Bascially there is so much variables in Mobile Network design you can't say it is limiting. The same could be said as Apple limiting A10 performance. ( Due to battery and heat issues ) 

    I believe Intel modem you get to pay much less patent fees. 
    pscooter63
  • Reply 33 of 45
    k2kwk2kw Posts: 2,075member
    sirozha said:

    sirozha said:
    I noticed that when I upgraded my Verizon iPhone 7 (which I'm using on AT&T) from 10.0.3 to 10.1, my download speed dropped by almost 50%. I tested my iPhone 7 download speed on ATT right next to my wife's iPhone 6s. I definitely witnessed a dramatic worsening of the download speed after upgrading my iPhone 7 to iOS 10.1, whereas my wife's iPhone 6s, which stayed on iOS 10.0.2, maintained the same download speed. So, I know the issue was not with the cell tower. 

    I was fortunate to have beeen able to downgrade to 10.0.3 the following day, and after the downgrade, the download speed returned to where it was before I upgraded, which is about 120 Mbps on the iPhone 7. 

    I wonder if Apple started throttling Qualcom modems in iOS 10.1.  
    This also raises the possibility that this slowdown is a bug.
    I reported this to Apple the same day once I realized that iOS 10.1 reduced my Qualcomm modem iPhone 7 download speeds almost in half, and the downgrade to 10.0.3 restored the full download speed. I requested that an engineer call me back to do further testing (the cell tower is within 100 yards from my house). Apple told me that no one would be calling me back about this. I've tried to google this but found no reference mentioning a similar experience. That was a month ago or so. 
    So the iPhone 7 is not the best iPhone ever made.    That would be the 6S - faster and with headphone jack.
  • Reply 34 of 45
    larryalarrya Posts: 606member
    Nothing is "confirmed" by anyone except for unnamed "sources" a Re/code author spoke to. The headline is misleading whether "has", or "is confirmed to be", is implied.  This feels like echo chamber stuff.  There has been no technical proof or official admission by anyone. Might it be true?  Yes, but this post is premature. 
  • Reply 35 of 45
    mnbob1mnbob1 Posts: 269member
    Well, with this press release, would it make any Android using this model (or anything newer) from Qualcomm have faster performance than any Apple iPhone..?

    Apple needs to just get back into the business of making high-end devices which substantiate Apple's premium price.   Choosing a chip as a "winner" and then retarding a product to be on-par with another is probably because Intel is paying Apple (or giving them away) to do things like this. 

    Intel couldn't have worse PR than a news release like this.  If true, it'd be difficult to see any phone manufacturer seriously consider "Intel Inside" a flagship phone.
    I agree. I'm still trying to figure out why Apple would choose to use the Intel modem for two reasons 1) it's slower speed, 2) it's limited to GSM networks only. The only thing I can think of is that Qualcomm couldn't commit to the number of modems Apple needed because of their commitment to Samsung, Or possibly the Intel modem performs better on international networks? Only Apple has the answers. Here in the U.S. they should have provided the Qualcomm only phones and they could have avoided this kind of bad press.I do know when you buy a phone at an Apple Store on the Apple upgrade plan or on their payment plan you will get a Qualcomm unlocked phone for AT&T. I just bought one and when I voiced my concerns about this issue with the Apple salesman he told me that this is the case. It's only when you either buy a phone from an AT&T store or outlet or at the Apple Store and specify AT&T Next program that you get the Intel phone that is locked to AT&T.
  • Reply 36 of 45
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,192member
    My fair choice to buy an iPhone with the superior Qualcomm modem has been unfairly squelched by Apple. Is Apple going to reduce the performance of the Qualcomm modem under less-than-ideal conditions to make it on par with the Intel modem, too?
    edited November 2016
  • Reply 37 of 45
    larrya said:
    Nothing is "confirmed" by anyone except for unnamed "sources" a Re/code author spoke to. The headline is misleading whether "has", or "is confirmed to be", is implied.  This feels like echo chamber stuff.  There has been no technical proof or official admission by anyone. Might it be true?  Yes, but this post is premature. 
    True.  Headline should read "Earlier story echoed by some random unnamed source who presumably doesn't work for Apple'
  • Reply 38 of 45

    k2kw said:
    sirozha said:

    sirozha said:
    I noticed that when I upgraded my Verizon iPhone 7 (which I'm using on AT&T) from 10.0.3 to 10.1, my download speed dropped by almost 50%. I tested my iPhone 7 download speed on ATT right next to my wife's iPhone 6s. I definitely witnessed a dramatic worsening of the download speed after upgrading my iPhone 7 to iOS 10.1, whereas my wife's iPhone 6s, which stayed on iOS 10.0.2, maintained the same download speed. So, I know the issue was not with the cell tower. 

    I was fortunate to have beeen able to downgrade to 10.0.3 the following day, and after the downgrade, the download speed returned to where it was before I upgraded, which is about 120 Mbps on the iPhone 7. 

    I wonder if Apple started throttling Qualcom modems in iOS 10.1.  
    This also raises the possibility that this slowdown is a bug.
    I reported this to Apple the same day once I realized that iOS 10.1 reduced my Qualcomm modem iPhone 7 download speeds almost in half, and the downgrade to 10.0.3 restored the full download speed. I requested that an engineer call me back to do further testing (the cell tower is within 100 yards from my house). Apple told me that no one would be calling me back about this. I've tried to google this but found no reference mentioning a similar experience. That was a month ago or so. 
    So the iPhone 7 is not the best iPhone ever made.    That would be the 6S - faster and with headphone jack.
    LOL.  And the best desktop PC was that last one that included a serial port?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 39 of 45
    cpsrocpsro Posts: 3,192member
    mnbob1 said: I do know when you buy a phone at an Apple Store on the Apple upgrade plan or on their payment plan you will get a Qualcomm unlocked phone for AT&T. I just bought one and when I voiced my concerns about this issue with the Apple salesman he told me that this is the case. It's only when you either buy a phone from an AT&T store or outlet or at the Apple Store and specify AT&T Next program that you get the Intel phone that is locked to AT&T.
    That is incorrect, at least through omission of important information.

    All T-Mobile and AT&T iPhone 7 models bought at any store contain the Intel modem. All Verizon, Sprint and SIM-free models of iPhone 7 contain the Qualcomm modem. When bought from Apple at full price or on Apple's upgrade program, all iPhone 7 models except those for Sprint are unlocked for all providers (including Sprint). T-Mobile and AT&T models, which have the Intel modem, support LTE on all networks but do not support all of the CDMA bands used on Verizon and Sprint networks. Thus, if you will or might one day use your iPhone 7 on Verizon or Sprint (or on a CDMA network in Japan, for instance), you should get a SIM-free or Verizon model, which supports all of the CDMA bands and is unlocked. In short, the Qualcomm modem offers a superset of features compared to the Intel modem and has been shown to offer superior performance under even less-than-ideal conditions. (The Qualcomm chip even supports HD VoLTE. Since the Intel chip doesn't support HD VoLTE, we can bet Apple will never support it for any iPhone 7.)

    Rather than paying full price up front, if you want to take advantage of Apple's upgrade program (24 equal monthly payments with no finance charge) to buy a Qualcomm model, but you're a T-Mobile or AT&T customer and don't want to switch providers, you will need to buy a SIM-free model. When you buy the device on Apple's upgrade plan, you will also need to activate a new SIM card for your network, but don't worry: activation of the new SIM card at Apple is free for all providers except Sprint. If you're on T-Mobile or AT&T and don't mind paying full price up front, buy a SIM-free or Verizon phone from Apple, either of which will be unlocked for all carriers and won't require activation of a new SIM card (as long as your current card works, which the SIM from a 5s or later will).
    edited November 2016
  • Reply 40 of 45
    fracfrac Posts: 480member
    Wouldn't it read better as
    Confirmed. Apple (is) limiting Qualcomm modem...
    Then it doesn't imply Apple confirming anything. ?
Sign In or Register to comment.