Despite claims to the contrary last week, Apple's efforts to manufacture its own iPhone modem are alive and well. In fact, according to a new report, the company is eyeing 6G cellular connectivity even as development of an Apple-made 5G modem continues.

This detail is discussed in a weekly column by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. The column was published a week after a thinly based report that Apple's modem efforts had been halted.

Certainly, we won't be seeing Apple modems anytime soon. Apple's current supplier, Qualcomm, has announced that it will supply modems for the iPhone through 2026, which will continue past next year's iPhone 16 and into the iPhone 18.

However, Garman says Apple is eager not to have to rely on Qualcomm for modems beyond that. Garman writes, "Apple is racing to perfect the modem so that it does not have to renew its contract (again) to buy components from Qualcomm."

There are advantages to Apple manufacturing its modems in-house. The biggest advantage is that it allows for a higher level of quality control. Apple is known for its rigorous testing and does not like to release anything that does not meet its own standards to the fullest extent. Another reason is that product releases would be more manageable. It also minimizes the potential risk of inventory shortages.

Apart from confirming that Apple's modem efforts are not coming to an end, there is another interesting piece of information in the Bloomberg report.

If iPhones with Apple modems are years away from shipping, 6G modems are even further away. 6G standards are not likely to go into effect until 2030.

6G, also known as 6th generation wireless, differs from the current 5G standard in several ways: the first concerns the amount of data that can be transferred per second. While 5G can currently provide speeds of up to 20 Gbps (gigabytes per second), 6G is expected to reach speeds of up to 1 Tbps (terabytes per second). 6G is also expected to enable nearly instantaneous data transfer with significantly reduced latency.

Bloomberg's report discrepancies with Apple's past job postings on 5G. It has also recently posted a job opening for a "state-of-the-art system software architect" who will "coordinate the design and modeling of the 6G reference architecture."

Again, it is unlikely that we will see a 6G modem from Apple or any other company until the end of the current decade. However, it is clear that Apple is not ready to give up its long-standing plan to develop its own iPhone components.