Whoa, shipping their own baseband modem for the first time, skipping the Qualcomm tax. That's huge, even for Apple.
I'm interested to see how these perform at the edge of reception, which still is a massive drain. Before I had an iPhone with satellite reception, turning on airplane mode when hiking was essential for battery life.
My current iPhone (and I had to check which one I have...) actually is much more sticky to satellite. It wont switch back to cellular immediately.
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I'm sure Apple still pays patent licensing fees to Qualcomm even if Apple is now manufacturing their own modem.