Apple said to have started development of radio modem this year

Apple has started work on its own radio modem earlier this year according to Bloomberg. 

People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Johny Srouji, the senior vice president of hardware technologies at Apple, revealed to employees in a town hall meeting. The in-house development of the radio modem is described as "another key strategic transition" and a long-term strategic investment by Srouji.

He added that the $1 billion acquisition of Intel helped the company to assemble a team of hardware and software engineers to work on the radio modem. While he did not specify when the radio modem will be ready to be deployed, Apple signed a six-year license agreement with Qualcomm which included a multi-year chipset supply deal.

The Information reported in May 2019 that it could take Apple at least five years before it can deploy its own radio modems. An internal organisational shift also allocated more priority for the radio modem project based on a Reuters report.

Source: Bloomberg