Apple’s C1 found in this year’s iPhone 16e was the culmination of the company’s efforts and a myriad of setbacks that continued to push the firm’s engineers forward in a bid to develop its own custom solution to obtain autonomy for a wide range of benefits. According to leaked code, the iPhone 17 Air and the iPhone 17e will be recipients of an in-house baseband chip, but some information continues to elude us, such as whether the upcoming models will be treated to the same C1 or have something better as part of their internals.
If Apple continues to use the C1 in the iPhone 17 Air and iPhone 17e, these two will potentially miss out on mmWave networks in the U.S.
Leaked code spotted by @aaronp613 revealed that Apple’s in-house 5G modem is arriving to the iPhone 17 Air later this year and the iPhone 17e for 2026. As for the remaining iPhone 17 series, the California-based giant will stick with Qualcomm for now, with the possibility that the remaining members will feature a custom Wi-Fi chip. Assuming the latter turns out to be true, the iPhone 17 Air will be Apple’s first launch to sport two wireless chips developed and mass produced in-house. As for one of the most important questions, will the iPhone 17 Air and iPhone 17e ship with the C1 or C2?
Currently, there is no confirmation on what decision Apple has taken, with even leading correspondents such as Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman unable to provide these details, so we will have to resort to some evaluation to get to the bottom of this. Firstly, the C1 running in the iPhone 16e does not support mmWave networks, which already makes Qualcomm’s Snapdragon range of 5G modems the superior choice if you want to use these chips in a flagship smartphone. In case you forgot, shortly after the iPhone 16e announcement, it was revealed that Apple had seemingly kicked off development of the C2 5G modem, with the biggest difference being that it will support mmWave networks.
Assuming the company can prepare the C2 in time, we cannot see why this baseband silicon will not debut in the iPhone 17 Air and iPhone 17e. Then again, if that was the case, then Apple would have straight-up used the C2 in the entire iPhone 17 family. Exploring these scenarios, we have to go with our gut and claim that the iPhone 17 Air will ship with the C1, with the possibility that the iPhone 17e will sport the C2. Then again, Apple can change its plans in the blink of an eye, and since it keeps this information under wraps, we may only find out during the official announcement that will reportedly kick off on September 9.
News Source: @aaronp613
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