Intel Fails to Get Exclusivity Deal for the iPhone 8

• Apple’s attempts to move to Intel chips for iPhone 8 have hit a barrier.
• The chips have some quality issues that prevent Intel from becoming the exclusive provider.
• Apple’s shaky relationship with Qualcomm will continue, despite legal issues.

Apple’s legal issues with Qualcomm have continued throughout 2018. The company hopes to reclaim some of the royalty fees that it paid to Qualcomm, claiming them to be excessive. For its part, Qualcomm’s dispute lies with the fact that Apple hasn’t paid its royalty rates since starting the case.

Apple hoped for a clean break from Qualcomm in 2018. However, it’s looking unlikely that Apple will be able to fully move away from using Qualcomm chips with its upcoming iPhone 8.

Apple’s intention was to switch over to Intel’s new range of modems for the iPhone 8. Dubbed the XMM 7560, these modems are the first from Intel to offer support for CDMA. This would prove crucial for Apple, as it’s the CDMA support in Qualcomm’s chips that has forced it to stick with the supplier, despite the legal issues.

Unfortunately, things don’t appear to be going as smoothly as Apple would like. Intel hasn’t matched the quality levels that Apple expects from its chips, which means it won’t be granted exclusivity for supplying chips to the iPhone 8. This is despite reports that Intel would be the exclusive provider.

What Will Happen?

This isn’t to say that Intel won’t offer any of its modems for the iPhone 8. The likely solution for Apple is to use Qualcomm’s chips for the time being, until it’s ready to switch more permanently to Intel’s.

There’s also the iPhone 7 issue to keep in mind. With its previous phones, Apple used Intel chips in some phones while using Qualcomm chips in others. Users reported that the Intel phones offered slower performance. Some users may have reservations about a new iPhone that uses Intel hardware.

For now, it seems like Intel will provide about 70% of the chips needed for the new phones. But it’s likely that they’ll have to wait until the next generation for full exclusivity.