My suspicions on iPhone delays - chipset integration complexity?

EDIT 1am 6/10/11: RIP Steve Jobs

 So.

Now we know that we're going to get an iPhone 4S, and not an iPhone 5 for now. I'm quite glad that I haven't been speculating about what might or might not be in an iPhone 5, as there are plenty of analysts and other commentators with egg on their faces today.

And so now there are lots of people who are disappointed in the outcome:

"Is that all? It's the same device with a better camera and that voice recognition thingy. Where's our big screen, our NFC, our LTE - what happened to all the leaked designs and mockups of cases for a new device? Why did it take them so long to do this, surely this isn't 16 months work, these changes are minor!"

I suspect that the answer lies under the hood. What Apple has actually been doing is working on a new hardware platform which will probably endure for several generations of its devices. That has likely taken a *huge* amount of work: chipset and hardware level integration is massively complex and needs lots of fine-tuning. It's quite possible to have to start again several times if the outcomes aren't perfect - something that Apple has the unique luxury of doing as it's not really that pressured cashflow-wise to get something out, even if it's compromised. It's worth remembering that the original iPhone only came out when Steve Jobs thought it was up to standard, and I'd imagine that Tim Cook will take the same stance on the '5. Then think of all the other promising devices over the years that have had issues like awful battery life, or which crash all the time - or even Apple putting out the iPhone 4 before getting the antenna properly tested and sorted.

It's worth looking at what's in an iPhone. Most critically, the baseband chipset which is the "modem" which connects to the cellular network. (There's a separate story with the apps processor as well, see below).

In most of the iPhones to date, the 2G/3G baseband has come from Infineon (now owned by Intel), with three generations of silicon. The CDMA-based version of the iPhone 4 was the first to have an alternative chip, from Qualcomm. In theory, this chip could have been used to give the "world-phone" UMTS/CDMA ability touted for the 4S - but it was never actually switched on and used in this way.

While the baseband for the 4S hasn't been announced, I strongly suspect it's also a Qualcomm product, as they pretty much monopolise everything CDMA-related, and so dual-mode GSM/CDMA devices are pretty much a done-deal for the Big Q.

Most critically, not only does Infineon/Intel not support CDMA (critical to keep Verizon and others on-board), it  does not currently have an LTE chipset , although it is working on one for mid-2012 volume shipments. Crucially though, that still doesn't support CDMA, which will likely still be needed for a few years as Verizon and others will not have full LTE coverage and enough capacity until 2013-2014 at the earliest and possibly much later. And of course, regular readers will know that I don't expect VoLTE to be fully ready for prime-time for a long while either, so VZW iPhones will need at least CDMA 1x support for the foreseeable future.

And then there's the processor. The iPad has already been using the A5 chip, so it is natural that the company would like to migrate it down into the phone. The iPhone A4 was used in both the iPhone 4's, with previous phones thought to be using a Samsung chip. But a tablet has a big form-factor and battery, so there doesn't need to be such tight integration between the processor and modem - the baseband can be done as a "module" - which in fact works well, because the iPad has to come in WiFi-only versions anyway. But iPhones all need baseband and processor, fitted into much tighter constraints of space and battery size.

So Apple historically has had:

• A4 + Infineon (iPhone 4 GSM)
• A4 + Qualcomm (iPhone 4 CDMA)
• A5 + optional Infineon (iPad & iPad 2)
• Samsung + Infineon (iPhone 3GS)

But Apple won't want to support multiple hardware platforms unnecessarily if it can avoid it, as it wants to keep up its margins in the face of competition and will want scale benefits and performance optimisation. So there are probably four important hardware integration and evolution exercises that have been occuring at Apple:

• Move the GSM/UMTS platform from Infineon to Qualcomm, with lots of integration with the radio and other bits of the hardware
• Add UMTS capability to the CDMA versions of the device - lots of integration, again. [Note: it's more important to add UMTS to CDMA than vice-versa for outbound roaming, although I'm sure Vodafone likes the idea of being able to roam onto Verizon]
• Shift the iPhone platform from A4 to A5 processor & future descendants AND integrate this with the new (presumably Qualcomm) baseband

(There's also a vague chance that it's migrating away from the Samsung apps processor in newer versions of the 3GS, I guess - especially given the current IPR war between the two companies)


But more importantly I'm expecting that it is also....

• (I'm really hypothesising here) Developing a single LTE platform consisting of A5 (or A6 etc) processor and a CDMA/UMTS/LTE baseband, usable in iPhone, iPad and iImagineSomethingElse. This is probably a *huge* development project which probably faces a ton of horribleness in everything from power consumption to radio performance. I'd guess there's perhaps a fallback plan of going to separate UMTS/LTE and CDMA/LTE platforms if it faces insuperable problems, especially given the range of frequencies that will need to be supported. I suspect Apple would rather have two or three variants of the same core platform, rather than totally divergent solutions.

I'd guess that just doing the first three have involved a Herculean effort, which we now see the results of in the 4S. If that means that Apple has to disappoint some of its more ardent fans clamouring for new stuff... well, I reckon they took they realised that doing everything in one go was impossible, and decided to take the pain now. 

It's also possible that Apple sticks with another iteration of the current 4S platform for another year, before adding in a "perfect" LTE option in 2013. My prediction from June 2010 was that Apple support LTE was most likely in 2012 or 2013 (I'm glad I dodged the bullet on the 5% 2011 chance). An October 2012 launch would make sense - and would also fit in with future timelines of both Qualcomm and Intel (and possibly others like nVidia).

Edit: there's also a chance Apple will do something truly disruptive with its LTE implementation, and move to a full dual-radio SVLTE approach, keeping telephony on circuit-based radio connections rather than relying on VoIP on LTE or the uber-clunky, worse-than-useless circuit-switched fallback option. Interestingly, Huawei has now started floating dual-radio as a possible option (ZTE has for some time). Hat-top to Zahid for spotting this, I'll follow up another time in depth - and it's also covered in the Future of Voice workshops' section on LTE.

To sum up - in my view, the iPhone 4S is all about the hardware platform shift. Stuff like Siri is window-dressing in comparison, to give the fans at least something visible. LTE support was completely unrealistic (as I've said before) given the other more important and urgent changes going on with the platform. It's also another reason why fripperies like NFC have been kicked further down the road - especially as I imagine Apple knows very well that it's being overhyped.

This might be disappointing for some, and could possibly give Microsoft and Nokia an opportunity to profit from a temporary lull in external iPhone evolution, but it's likely set the scene for continued growth and profitability from Apple's mobile devices for a few more years.