Apple to ditch Qualcomm 5G chips with its own in-house 5G chips in new ultra-slim iPhone 17

Apple is 'accelerating its move away from reliance on Qualcomm' says analyst, ditch Qualcomm 5G chips for in-house 5G chips in some new iPhones in 2025.

Apple to ditch Qualcomm 5G chips with its own in-house 5G chips in new ultra-slim iPhone 17
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Gaming Editor
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Apple has been working on an in-house 5G modem for many years now, but for years it has been using Qualcomm 5G chips inside of its iPhone... but the company is now prepping a couple of new iPhones with Apple's in-house 5G chip inside.

Apple to ditch Qualcomm 5G chips with its own in-house 5G chips in new ultra-slim iPhone 17 85

According to analyst and insider Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will debut its in-house 5G chip inside of two new iPhones in 2025: the iPhone SE 4 and a new ultra-slim iPhone 17. The iPhone SE 4 will launch in the spring, while the new ultra-slim iPhone 17 model will debut in the fall, says Kuo.

Apple won't be using its in-house 5G modem across its entire fleet of iPhones, but in these two models specifically. This means that outside of the upcoming iPhone SE 4 and ultra-slim iPhone 17, every other member of the iPhone 2025 family will be using Qualcomm 5G modems inside.

This also means that the upcoming iPhone 16 smartphones will use a Qualcomm 5G modem, as too will the 2025 releases in the next-gen iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max handsets.

However, things will change in 2026 and beyond where Apple can bake-in its new in-house 5G modem alongside its next-generation A-series processor, which gets fabbed at TSMC. We should expect the iPhone 18 family to have in-house 5G chips at this point, which isn't too far away if you think about it, just two more years and two more generations of iPhones.

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NEWS SOURCE:9to5mac.com

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Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

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