I think at this point the bridge between Apple and Qualcomm is pretty well burned, especially after all the legal nastiness. I'm wondering if Apple will move some of its chip design talent to fabricating their own modems. It seems that Apple has been trying to pull more stuff in-house for greater integration and performance (plus more profit). This is also supported a job posting someone uncovered: https://bgr.com/2018/05/01/iphone-5g-chip-apple-qualcomm-int...
Apple really doesn't like putting all their eggs in a single vendor basket.
It was my understanding that when Apple started using both Intel and Qualcomm modems that Qualcomm started telling Apple they would have to pay "full price" for patent licensing on the Intel modems, and things deteriorated.
"This study has been done entirely independently, and Cellular Insights takes full responsibility for the analysis and opinions in this report. We have self-funded the procurement of iPhone 7 Plus units through commercial retail channels."
Sure thing, he bought equipament that costs millions of dollars and did that just so he could post on his site that only opened when Apple started not using Qualcomm modems, right?
AFAIK there is still a sensitivity and LTE capability gap between Qualcomm and Intel.
Kind of sad Apple doesn't think that's worth the extra ~$10 or so on a $1000 phone.