Rumors dating back to March 2015 suggested that Intel could be working on modems that might find their way into the iPhone 7. We also heard the rumors that Intel had about 1,000 employees working on it and now thanks to a report from Bloomberg, we might just have gotten more evidence that Intel could indeed by supplying modems for the iPhone 7.
According to the report, it seems that hint that Intel supplying Apple with modems came from Qualcomm themselves. During a recent earnings call, Qualcomm’s CEO Steve Mollenkopf told analysts that he was assuming that a major customer would be giving orders to Qualcomm’s rival and suggested that the company would be taking a loss because of this.
Obviously no names were mentioned, but Qualcomm does supply modems to Apple and Intel is a rival in the chipset business, so this has led to speculation that the customer is Apple, and Intel is the rival in question. Unsurprisingly a Qualcomm spokesman declined to comment any further beyond what was said during the earnings call, and neither did Apple.
Assuming that this is true, it would actually be good news for iPhone users. The modem that Intel is said to be supplying to Apple is (at least on paper) faster than what Qualcomm had provided to Apple in the past. Theoretically this means that iPhone users could enjoy faster LTE speeds, but until we see the teardown do take it with a grain of salt for now.