The iPhone 16e is the first Apple product with the company’s self-made C1 modem, and it’s been performing admirably from the 5G tests we’ve observed so far. The success of this chip means more and more Apple products will begin stepping away from Qualcomm’s 5G modem in the future and replace it with in-house Apple silicons for connectivity.
It seems the giant is already making preparations for the next-gen modem to be used inside the iPhone 18 Pro series. There are reports that the Apple C2 chip will fix a major issue faced by the current C1 modem on iPhone 16e, which is the lack of mmWave support.
Apple C1 chip currently available is a matrix of several 4-7nm baseband components and a 55nm PMIC for power control. There’s no mmWave support, which is likely why Apple is sticking with the same Qualcomm 5G modem this year for the iPhone 17 series.
The company is taking its time to perfect the in-house technology to produce the Apple C2 modem. According to Jeff Pu, the analyst, they will probably release Apple iPhone new models, the iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max exclusively with the new C2 integrated network modem. It means that the base iPhone 18 and 18 Plus will likely have the current C1 chip or a Qualcomm-based 5G modem.
Apple is playing it as close to the vest as possible, which means we might not get any confirmation about the news until the iPhone 17 series launch or later. But, for now, the reports will do. Some rumors on the internet also suggest that the C1 chip will have a different implementation in the future.
If we talk about the iPhone 16e, the device has its C1 modem externally mounted, away from the Apple A18 silicon. In the next generations, there’s a possibility that the network chip will be integrated inside the main silicon, just like the Qualcomm chips.
Apple might have freed itself from the clutches of Qualcomm’s expensive and outsourced network components, but it might take years for the company to catch up. We won’t be seeing the integrated network chips from Apple anytime soon in the next few years.
