Apple Is Preparing Its iPhones For The Arrival Of 5G

Apple is believed to be working to enhance their smartphones’ wireless performance by improving the antennas of iPhones launching this year. There is no way the new iPhones will support 5G, but the improvements are expected to pave the way for short term’s benefits.

Users, smartphone makers, and carriers want nothing more now than the next generation of mobile communication and faster wireless charging. Apple has been holding the pioneer position for some time now, but for some reason, it has decided to postpone the introduction of a 5G iPhone to 2020.

What we know now is Apple’s decision stems from a real business strategy rather than an issue it faces. It is believed that the iPhone maker is waiting patiently for 5G infrastructure to be built and the general public to be more open with the technology.

Apple put lots of hope on Intel’s modem but recently, some problems arose, and Qualcomm was brought back into the picture. Intel is making its way out of the 5G modem sector, so Qualcomm is now the most prominent candidate to provide hardware for the 5G iPhones.

Dating back even earlier than the vast improvement we are talking about is another shakeup. Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst who has had several accurate predictions about Apple’s next moves, said that this year iPhone would replace the usual LCP antennas with the modified-PI antenna. This piece of information was announced in an investor briefing of TF Securities.

The LCP antenna is on iPhone XS, iPhone XR, and iPhone XS Max but this technology has caused Apple some troubles. Ming Chi-Kuo said that the LCP has limitations that can have a negative impact on the smartphone’s radio performance. Apart from that, the company also experience issues with its producing process because of this tech. Modified-PI is not exactly a game changer for Apple in the long term, but for iPhones releasing this year, it can be a decent substitute.

The modified-PI, or you can call it MPI for short, is not as hard to make as the old LCP. Another prime benefit is this tech is actually more budget-friendly. On paper, LCP is better than MPI, but given the current situation, Apple did not get what it had hoped for when implementing the LCP technology.

However, that switch will not appear on the upcoming iPhones right away. Kuo predicted that the 5G smartphone would still make use of LCP. If that turns out to be accurate, Apple might have found a way to make its producing process effective enough to make up for the more expensive price of LCP. The old antenna technology would also appear on the latest version of iPads, the device Kou said would be released later this year.

Antennas are far from being a selling point for any smartphone but no producers can take the risk of not using the best one possible as the impact on the overall experience of users is vast. What Apple after is a higher speed, but if its hardware cannot hold up to the demand of the technology, there will not be any difference in users’ experience. If smartphone makers succeed in creating such handheld devices, carriers can be beneficial too.

When the iPhone 4 was first introduced, users had made speculations about something called an “antennagate,” but it did not happen. Even until now, Apple still has a lot to do to make that prediction comes true. The general public has been criticizing Apple for not keeping up with the latest technology. If the company can improve the antennas so that users notice a better performance without taking advantage of the 5G, the company might be able to save some of its reputations.