Apple goes to great (wave)lengths for 5G

It’s no secret that Apple isn’t always the first when it comes to bringing new or nascent tech into smartphones. But that doesn’t mean they’re just observing then make token upgrades just to keep in step with the rest: Wireless charging, multi-lens cameras and, now, 5G — all these features saw the iPhone maker lag behind the rest of the pack.

But as others are busy rolling out their offerings, Tim Cook and Co are equally, if not more, busy behind the scenes to ensure that they’d sprint ahead despite the perceived late start.

“We’ve been working on 5G for a number of years, helping define 5G in a way to deliver a great experience,” Francesca Sweet, product line manager for iPhone, told Khaleej Times in an exclusive interview.

5G had been touted to come into fruition as early as 2018 and the first 5G-capable smartphones were made available in the market last year. Its potential and contribution to society have also been key pegs — gigabyte downloads in mere seconds, for example — thus hyping itself up to both consumers and industries.

And while its rivals, one by one, offered 5G devices Apple — the most popular and closely-watched name in the smartphone industry — decided to hold off. Not one to comment on rumours or speculation, it was thought within tech circles that Apple decided that those years weren’t the right time for a 5G device.

Meanwhile, within its sprawling Apple Park campus, the foundations for the iPhone maker’s next wave of releases are brainstormed and executed.

Sweet says that Apple has tested their 5G tech with over 100 partner carriers in 30 regions, including the UAE, where it worked with telecom firms etisalat, du and Virgin Mobile.

Cook, the CEO, said that to create the best 5G experience, there must be a seamless integration of hardware and software, plus partnering closely with carriers. Sweet described the process akin to an engine wherein all parts work flawlessly to keep it humming.

“Customised fine-tuning and optimisation were done hand-in-hand.”

The A14 Bionic chip — highlighted by Apple in their ‘secret labs’ during its October 13 keynote — is a big part of it: Up to 50 per cent faster performance and graphics than its peers and an improved Neural Engine that is up to 80 per cent faster performance on machine learning models and offers up to 11 trillion operations per second.

Apple has 50 anechoic chambers — rooms designed to completely absorb sound or electromagnetic waves and which also prevents waves from penetrating in — in which it develops and tests wireless technologies. In it, Apple is able to replicate signals from multiple sources and directions, the data from which is used to optimise its antennae system.

Sweet says that Apple develops its own highly-customised parts, such as 5G antennaes and radio components that allows them to aim for what’s best in the entire system, as well as to be space-efficient.

Meanwhile, on the software side, an equally-tedious endeavour was going on.