Apple has never liked being beholden or limited to specific suppliers. Long before Apple started making the A-series and M-series chips that power all the devices it makes, it transitioned away from PowerPC chips made by Motorola and IBM because that platform limited what Apple could do. It did the same with Intel when that manufacturer couldn’t meet Apple’s long term needs. And now, Apple is beginning to move away from its Qualcomm supplied modems.
I’ve been using laptops since the 1990s. And while I always wanted more CPU power, memory and storage, there was one element of performance that simply ignored Moore’s Law. Battery life has always languished. There are good reasons for that but as someone who remembers when two hours was touted as outstanding battery life when devices weight 3kg and needed a massive power adaptor, today’s machines are amazing.
That brings us to the C1. When we look at the specifications of the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16e, there’s something that really stands out.
| iPhone 16 | iPhone 16e | |
| Battery life and charging | 22 hours video playback, MagSafe, USB-C, Up to 50% charge in 30 minutes18 with 20W adapter | 26 hours video playback, Qi2, Up to 50% charge in 30 minutes18 with 20W adapter |
The iPhone 16e, which costs $400 less, has superior battery life. How can it be that the entry level model beats the more premium product on this critical specification by almost 20%?
Given all the other major specs are the same (processor, screen technology and size, storage and memory) the one major internal component that differs is the modem – Apple’s new C1 chip.
Apple’s quest, which started with its acquisition of Intel’s cellular modem intellectual property back in 2019 for what now seems to be the bargain price of USD$1B, has delivered it’s first cellular modem, the C1. The complexity of this undertaking should not be underestimated. This is a device that has to work anywhere in the world and support hundreds of different carriers and comms standards. While we all thought Apple making its own processors was a big deal, this is a far more complex undertaking.
Apple gains two critical benefits through the new C1 and its descendants (I assume we’ll see the C2 in the iPhone 17 and maybe even a cellular-equipped MacBook Pro when the new M5 model is likely announced later this year.
Benefit 1: It is no longer limited in what it can do in terms of innovating on design by what Qualcomm wants to do. Every technical improvement Apple has made to the inside of its devices has had to take into account Qualcomm’s design. Apple will be able to build modems that fit its needs rather than having to accommodate Qualcomm’s designs.
Benefit 2: There’s an immediate payoff to every Apple customer. Battery life will, if the iPhone 16e is an indication, going to improve by as much as 25% even if Apple doesn’t do anything to improve processor, memory or storage efficiency.
Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, said in an interview with Reuters that:
“C1 is the start, and we’re going to keep improving that technology each generation, so that it becomes a platform for us that will be used to truly differentiate this technology for our products.”
Srouji went on to explain that because Apple can now enable the modem and processor to work more closely it will be able to do things like use the processor to determine which data should be routed first when there’s network congestion. Again, there’s an immediate payoff for users.
Apple has always, even during the dark days of the late 1980s and early 1990s, tried to be the master of its own destiny. The C1 chip furthers that vision.
Anthony is the founder of Australian Apple News. He is a long-time Apple user and former editor of Australian Macworld. He has contributed to many technology magazines and newspapers as well as appearing regularly on radio and occasionally on TV.