Rumor: Apple to Pick Qualcomm for CDMA iPhone
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Apple may not be as happy with Intel’s decision to buy iPhone chipmaker Infineon as we were early told. The rumor mills are churning out this intriguing speculation: Apple may turn to Qualcomm to build its iPhone 5, a “world phone” able to support more network technology.
Choice of baseband chips, the component used to “talk” to mobile networks, is often a hint to what carriers a handset-maker plans to support. By picking Qualcomm over Infineon, Apple may signal its intention to open its popular cell phone to players besides AT&T.
A Qualcomm baseband supports not only HSPA (now used by the iPhone 4), but also HSPA+, LTE and EV-DO. This could make the iPhone available to Verizon in the U.S., as well as other CDMA-based carriers, such as those in South Korea.
The chatter picked up some steam when The China Times reported a similar item. Could Apple’s rumored decision to move to CDMA account for why CEO Steve Jobs did not object to Intel acquiring the current iPhone chip supplier?
[9to5Mac, IntoMobile, China Times]
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
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