[StillBored]

How quickly we forget Huawei... QC's fine, but I think the huawei situation shows that QC has probably been getting a little fat/lazy on the modem side for a few years too. Only a real competitor could prove that if true, 2013 intel looked like they were best in class too but the rot was already firmly entrenched.

So, I wouldn't say intel's modems were awful, maybe not as good as the QC's of the time, but it could just have been immature, and underfunded. Apple OTOH, is famous for taking somewhat failed teams and having a long enough vision to create great products. They seem to understand that 9 women can't create a baby in 1 month and are willing to keep iterating until its right if it solves a problem for them.