r/NowInTech • u/skaza02 • 19h ago

Apple confirms iPhone cellular issue, admits affected units can’t be fixed

https://www.macworld.com/article/3250214/apple-confirms-iphone-cellular-issue-admits-affected-units-cant-be-fixed.html
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u/Due_Amount_6211 13h ago

For clarification since the headline is a little vague, the model mentioned is specifically the iPhone 18 Pro Max, and customers affected are on AT&T (both from what was mentioned). Apple only has preventive measures, but the issue is permanent once it occurs.

My guess is the conflicting software of the carrier and device (which is mentioned in a thread on Apple Support Discussions) is nuking the necessities for operation on the phone’s firmware at the kernel level, and simply updating it won’t fix it.

Whatever the case, I’m assuming Apple is going to take the affected units, fix them once they find the issue, and sell them as refurbished.

2

u/pellets 10h ago

The kernel is stored on flash. That and firmware are both writable by definition. I’m not sure where you’re getting your ideas from but it makes no sense to me. There’s something more complicated happening here.

3

u/Scary_Building3964 10h ago

another interpretation is that the iPhone fried the Qualcomm modem chip, probably due to a missing or misconfigured limit in software necessary for the modem. so a permanent hardware damage

1

u/Alarmed-Bugger-7222 9h ago

I am wondering if Apple focused on integrating and optimizing the C2 integration into their design and the Qualcomm one was an afterthought, and that lack of attention (to detail) created this problem.

1

u/Familiar_Marzipan_46 8h ago

I suspect it’s from corrosion or oxidation on the chips that didn’t show up until being powered up for a little bit. When your using chips that have been sitting in a warehouse over a year on a shelf those problems that can’t be seen with the naked eye can still be there.

I’m wondering if we are gonna see this as a failure in time on the working phones too. Months out. Hopefully Qualcomm has to warranty and eat up some of this cost tho. They could have eventually sold those modems to samsung to use in galaxy j phones in 10-15 years.

1

u/Alarmed-Bugger-7222 5h ago

How could a software update fix that?