Apple launched the iPhone Air last week with its in-house C1X 5G modem, built directly into the A19 Pro chip. While Apple highlighted the modem as being faster than Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X75 and 30% more power-efficient, Ben Bajarin, CEO of Creative Strategies, offered a more nuanced view of its strengths and weaknesses.
“It may not be as good as Qualcomm’s yet, in terms of just overall throughput and performance, but they can control it and they can make it run at lower power. So you’re going to get better battery life,” Bajarin said. He added that Apple is on track to “completely phase out” Qualcomm in the “next couple of years,” a sign of the company’s long-term modem strategy.
The C1X is a second-generation Apple modem, following the first C1 that appeared in the budget iPhone 16e. Unlike the Qualcomm Snapdragon X80 used in the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max, the C1X does not support mmWave networks and is limited to sub-6GHz bands. This means that while Apple can claim efficiency advantages, Qualcomm still leads in raw throughput for peak 5G performance.
That efficiency advantage matters for the iPhone Air, which Apple promotes as capable of up to 27 hours of video playback. The modem’s low-power design, combined with the N1 wireless chip and A19 Pro processor, enables Apple to deliver longer runtime without compromising everyday usability. Bajarin emphasized that most users rarely reach gigabit 5G speeds due to network limitations, so better endurance is often more practical than theoretical maximums.
Apple’s ambition to replace Qualcomm entirely is clear. The company’s licensing deal with Qualcomm runs through March 2027, but Bajarin’s comments suggest Apple wants to move sooner. Reports indicate that a C2 modem is already in development with planned support for mmWave 5G. For now, the iPhone Air is Apple’s most ambitious experiment yet in proving that its in-house wireless technology can strike the right balance between power and performance.
