Apple may ditch Qualcomm components in 2018 iPhones, iPads

Due to its ongoing legal dispute with Qualcomm, Apple is designing iPhones and iPads for next year that would jettison the chipmaker’s components, sources tell The Wall Street Journal.

Modem chips from Intel and possibly MediaTek would be placed in the devices instead as Qualcomm is reportedly withholding software critical to testing its chips in Apple prototypes, the article adds. In January, Apple filed a lawsuit again Qualcomm, the world’s dominant supplier of baseband processors, alleging the chip supplier demanded unfair terms for its technology. The same month, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint in federal district court charging Qualcomm with using anticompetitive tactics to maintain its monopoly in the supply of a key semiconductor device used in cell phones and other consumer products.

However, Qualcomm denies the allegations and says Apple wouldn’t have an iPhone business if it weren’t for fair licensing of the company’s essential tech. The company claims it went out of its way to offer alternative licensing (which Apple rejected), and that, in suing Qualcomm, Apple is motivated by reducing the cost to make iPhones.