For years, Qualcomm has been Apple's sole provider of baseband chips, a relationship briefly disrupted by Intel during the 4G era.

However, Intel's inability to produce 5G baseband chips forced Apple to revert to Qualcomm. Determined to break free from Qualcomm's monopoly, Apple acquired Intel's baseband chip division with ambitions to launch its own chips.

Despite six years of effort, Apple's baseband chip had yet to materialize, raising questions about its new chip development capabilities and underestimating the complexity of baseband chip R&D.

In 2025, Apple finally unveiled its C1 baseband chip, integrating it into the new iPhone 16e, replacing Qualcomm's chip. Apple boasts it as the most power-efficient baseband chip ever used in an iPhone, without elaborating on its performance.

Many speculated that the C1 might lack in performance, viewing iPhone 16e users as guinea pigs for testing and improvement. However, a recent professional review revealed otherwise.

The review compared the iPhone 16e's C1 baseband chip with the iPhone 16's Qualcomm X71 baseband chip. Surprisingly, there was virtually no difference in network connection speed, switching speed, and uplink and downlink speeds on the same network, indicating that Apple's in-house chip is at least on par with Qualcomm's in performance.

More impressively, Apple's C1 chip consumes less power, resulting in the iPhone 16e offering 2-3 hours more battery life than the iPhone 16 in tests.

It is evident that Apple's transition from Qualcomm to its own C1 chips poses no significant challenges. Furthermore, Apple plans to introduce improved versions like C2 and C3, expected to outperform the C1.

With this development, Qualcomm's revenue from Apple is set to decrease significantly, and Apple has freed itself from Qualcomm's constraints. No longer beholden to Qualcomm's demands, Apple has asserted its independence in the baseband chip market.