The iPhone will support RCS next year, Apple’s own 5G baseband has been delayed yet again, and the Apple Watch Ultra dark color prototype has been delayed still further.

Apple’s self-developed 5G baseband has been delayed once more.

Apple has been developing its own 5G baseband processor for several years in order to replace the Qualcomm Snapdragon 5G baseband chip used in the current iPhone, but it has not been going smoothly. According to Mark Gurman’s recent report, Apple will not be able to accomplish its aim of releasing the first 5G baseband for the iPhone in 2025 on schedule.

Apple officially began its own baseband chip work in 2019 after acquiring the majority of Intel’s modem division. However, the project encountered a number of obstacles. Apple appears to be years away from building a processor that can compete with or outperform Qualcomm chips in terms of performance.

According to Gurman, Apple will also miss the intended delivery date of spring 2025. The debut of the baseband chip has been postponed until late 2025 or early 2026, with Apple intending to utilize it for the first time in a low-cost iPhone SE.

According to reports, Apple’s baseband chip research is still in its early phases and may be years behind competitors, with one version in development not even supporting speedier mmWave technology. Apple faced issues with Intel code as well, not just rebuilding it but also introducing new features while avoiding harming old ones and being cautious not to infringe on Qualcomm’s patents.

According to one Apple employee, “it’s a mystery why we thought we could take on Intel’s failed project and succeed.” Apple’s hardware technical staff is also “strained” as a result of the several projects involved, making bug resolution more complex.

Just a day before the release of this year’s iPhone 15 series, Qualcomm announced that it had extended its agreement with Apple until at least 2026. This means that Apple has another three years to complete the design of its first 5G baseband, but if it still struggles, Apple may extend the agreement with Qualcomm again.

Next year, iPhones will support RCS messaging.

Two days ago, Apple confirmed to foreign media that it intends to support RCS Rich Communication Service/Converged Communications via a software update later next year.

Apple had previously resisted RCS adoption, while Google continued to exert pressure through billboards, social media pressure, and the “Get the Message” website. Google’s move is intended to put pressure on Apple to resolve the issue of SMS communication between iPhone and Android users. Through creative advertising, even Samsung has joined the campaign to highlight the divide between green and blue bubbles (i.e., Android and iPhone users).

RCS is expected to bring a variety of iMessage-like features to messaging between iPhone and Android users, including read receipts, input status, high-quality image and video transfer, and more.

Apple claims that RCS will offer greater cross-platform messaging compatibility than MMS or SMS (multimedia messaging). Notably, RCS will only take the place of SMS and MMS when they become available, meaning that iMessage will remain the preferred platform for communication among Apple users.

According to Apple, iMessage performs better in terms of security and privacy protection than RCS. Though RCS does not yet support as high an encryption level as iMessage, iMessage does support end-to-end encryption. With Advanced Data Protection for Messages in iCloud, Apple has further improved the security of iMessage.

Apple also stated that it will collaborate with members of the Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) to improve the RCS protocol, specifically the level of security and encryption of RCS messages.

The Apple Watch Ultra prototype in a darker shade.

According to FCC documents, Apple appears to have originally designed an Apple Watch Ultra prototype with a dark ceramic backplate, which was recently discovered and published by X user @ParrotSWD.

When releasing new devices, Apple is required to disclose details to the FCC, and the September 2022 release of the Apple Watch Ultra was no exception. The prototype had a deeper, almost black-like ceramic back case with a plastic-like, notchless operation button, according to images in FCC documents. These design elements, however, do not appear in the final product

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