In the case of 5G modems, I, for one, welcome and fully support Apple's obsession with replacing the 5G modems with their own for two reasons: Qualcomm 5G modems are power-hungry and run hot to very hot. Ever feel that burning sensation from your smartphone tucked away in a pocket of your jeans? That is right, that is Qualcomm sending you invisible rays of love. A 4G MiFi device I used to have could easily run on a single battery charge for 8 hours, and sometimes it would still have some battery charge left. The battery in my current 5G MiFi device can barely sustain 4 hours of operation, and sometimes even less – because of the power hungry Qualcomm 5G modem.

Every single 5G device (smartphones, tablets, and MiFi devices) I have owned came with a Qualcomm 5G modem, which has always had a detrimental impact on the battery life of the device, and especially so as the data transfers increase. Given the engineering and financial resources at Qualcomm's disposal, it is bewildering that they have not even attempted to address the power consumption of their flagship product that also happens to be a cash cow. It is regrettable that Ericsson is not in the business of making consumer-grade 5G modems/chipsets, focusing on the core network equipment exclusively.

The downside of Apple eventually achieving the feature parity with Qualcomm in the future is, of course, that their 5G modem availability will be constrained to the Apple ecosystem in the embedded form unless they also decide to make their MiFi device, which is not very likely.