Igeekphone News on August 7th: Last month, Microsoft launched the 5G version of Surface Laptop for business customers. It supports both Nano SIM card and eSIM methods, and can also serve as a hotspot to provide networks for other devices. When the Surface Laptop launched 5G, Apple was also preparing for the 5G version of Mac devices.
Apple reporter Mark Gurman revealed that Apple could equip Mac computers with its self-developed 5G baseband chip as early as 2026, which would be the first Mac device in Apple’s history to support 5G networks.
It is reported that Mac computers in 2026 will be equipped with Apple’s new generation baseband chip C2. This baseband was first installed on the iPhone 18 Pro. This is the first time that Apple has applied its self-developed baseband chip on its own Pro models. It supports 5G millimeter wave and can achieve a maximum download speed of 6Gbps.
This also means that iPhone 17 Pro will be the last Apple phone to be equipped with a Qualcomm baseband chip. Among the iPhone 17 series that was launched in September this year, only the Air model applied the self-developed baseband chip C1, while the other three models still used Qualcomm basebands.
Analyst Mingqi Guo once said that Apple’s self-developed 5G baseband will start large-scale shipments from 2026, with an expected 90 to 110 million units in 2026 and 160 to 180 million units in 2027. This will have an impact on Qualcomm’s 5G chip shipments and patent licensing sales