After the iPad Pro, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro received support for faster Wi-Fi 6E in their latest releases, it will almost certainly appear on the iPhone 15 in the fall. These chips will not be manufactured by Apple, however.
According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple has “paused development of its own Wi-Fi chip for the time being” as it focuses on developing 3nm processors for Macs and iPhones. Apple has been working on a separate Wi-Fi chip to replace the Broadcom version in its device, but Kuo says “investors shouldn’t worry about Apple’s own Wi-Fi chip impacting Broadcom’s Wi-Fi chip business for the foreseeable future.”
This is the second major chip project to face a major challenge. Apple has also been working on a 5G modem since buying the rest of Intel’s closed team in 2019, but Kuo said last year that “development could have failed” and Apple would use Qualcomm chips in the iPhone 14.
Apple is working on releasing more components for the iPhone and Mac, while developing several smaller components. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple is working on a Bluetooth-Wi-Fi combo chip by 2025, but Kuo notes that “developing a Wi-Fi + Bluetooth combo chip is harder than just a Wi-Fi-only chip.”
Kuo notes that Apple is concerned about a “slowdown in processor updates” and is reallocating resources to prevent a delay in mass production of its 3nm chips. The introduction of the M2 chips has been somewhat bumpy, with the M2 debuting in June 2022 and the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips not arriving until January 2023 after they were reportedly delayed by several months. In addition, reports say that Apple has reduced the number of A16 chips in the iPhone 14 after it faced “unprecedented” manufacturing issues.