• Apple is one of 36 vendors to have submitted ideas, suggestions and requests for 6G to the 3GPP
• It wants greater simplicity, energy efficiency and an improved user experience from the next generation of cellular technologies 
• It also wants support for multiple device types from the start and for 6G to be supported by 5G core platforms
• Even faster connectivity data rates aren’t on its wish list for the 6G era

Apple’s interest in helping to shape the 6G standards should come as no surprise, especially given the recent advances it has made with its in-house modem design efforts. What may be more surprising is the extent to which the notoriously secretive company is willing to become involved. 

Also, given the paucity of strategic information that is released by the company, any clues as to its long-term ambitions are eagerly sought after.

From documents submitted to the recent 3GPP 6G workshop, it is clear that Apple is advocating for simplicity, energy efficiency and enhanced user experience, rather than striving for higher download speeds and the use of ever-higher frequency bands.

Future 6G standards will be created by the members of the 3GPP partnership organisation and the first set of specifications will be collated in its Release 21 documentation, which is expected at the end of 2029. Study work will form part of the Release 20 initiative, with normative work on the 6G standard beginning around mid-2026.

To prepare the groundwork, 3GPP invited its members to submit ideas, suggestions and requests for 6G and discussed these at a special all-hands 6G Workshop, held in South Korea in early March. It sought views on the overall 6G vision, as well as more detailed thoughts on the RAN and the system architecture, core networks and protocols (SA CT). It received more than 200 submissions from 123 companies – including three submissions from Apple.

All of these documents have been analysed by TelecomTV and we are publishing our findings in a series of four special reports – Defining 6G Networks. 

The first report, focusing on vendor submissions, is available and free to download now and the second, focusing on network operators, has just been published. 

Apple positions for 6G 

Apple has been actively recruiting 6G talent since at least 2021, when the first references to 6G appeared on the company’s jobs board. More recently, Apple posted a position for a modem systems software architect to “coordinate the design and modelling of a 6G reference architecture”. As well as building on its 5G modem knowledge (which it has just put to the test with commercial products this year), it also clearly wants to be an active participant in 6G standards work, looking for its new hires to “participate in industry/academic forums passionate about 6G technology”. 

It’s also explicitly looking for expertise in applying AI/ML techniques to wireless systems.

In late 2020, Apple joined the Next G Alliance, an industry group established by the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) that aims to “advance North American mobile technology leadership in 6G and beyond over the next decade”. 

Through ATIS, as well as via ETSI (Europe) and CCSA (China), Apple has 16 separate memberships to the 3GPP, mainly through regional affiliates in Europe and China, and is an active participant in working groups. It also benefits from having some seasoned standards experts on its staff, which it has hired and inherited from acquisitions (such as the Intel modem business deal in 2019).

In February this year, Apple released the iPhone 16e featuring its first custom-designed C1 modem that supports 5G and LTE (4G) connectivity. Early testing indicates that power efficiency is a major feature, which aligns strongly with an industry-wide desire for 6G to be more ‘green native’, including the power consumption requirements of consumer devices – something of a course correction following 5G’s surprisingly power-hungry requirements.

Apple has explicitly stated that the C1 is “the start of a long-term strategy that will allow Apple to innovate and optimise the modem system for additional Apple products”. 

Will this feature support mmWave frequencies? That’s debatable, given how poorly mmWave has been received by the industry, coupled with a scarcity of mentions in the 6G submission documents – mmWave may be a dead end, at least for now.

What is becoming certain is that a majority of operators really want full 6G support from day one – no non-standalone half measures, no absence of native voice support – and that means readily available handsets. Don’t be surprised to see Apple being early to market with 6G-enabled iPhones.

What does Apple want? 

In keeping with many other vendor requirements, Apple’s three 6G Workshop submission documents emphasise simplicity, energy efficiency and enhanced user experience. 

Forget higher download speeds – this is perhaps the biggest contrast to the 5G process; there is very little appetite to promote a faster-is-better approach. 

The company explicitly questions whether “extremely high peak data rates” should even be considered a useful key performance indicator (KPI) for 6G development. Instead, Apple wants the focus shifted to metrics that users actually experience: Consistent coverage, better battery life, reduced latency and enhanced security.

Apple is also clear about what it sees as 5G’s shortcomings. It notes that 5G specifications became bloated with excessive options and deployment scenarios. Of seven architecture options standardised for 5G, only two saw widespread deployment, creating unnecessary complexity that slowed implementation and fragmented the ecosystem. 

For 6G, Apple calls for a “clean and lean design from day one” with fewer options, simpler implementations and a focus on features with proven market value, recommending a “deprioritisation of features with limited commercial and business success based on the deep learnings from 5G”.

In terms of the RAN, Apple recommends accommodating expanded and new use cases and services, such as AI/ML and the very popular integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) model. It calls for multi-RAT (radio access technology) spectrum sharing (MRSS) and carrier aggregation techniques to be the baseline for migration to 6G, something that has wide support from other vendors as well as operators, and it is doubtful about the global availability of new dedicated spectrum for 6G. It also wants to see improved interaction between terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks (i.e. satellite).

Moving to the core network, Apple states a preference for an evolved 5G core, rather than the creation of a new 6G core architecture: Given how late operators are in deploying 5G standalone core platforms, this is no real surprise. Neither is the call for a 6G standalone architecture from day one, rather than a repeat of the non-standalone configuration seen with 5G. Apple supports interworking and migration between 5G and 6G, but does not support this between 4G and 6G (this is one of the more contentious aspects of the early 6G planning, which we will explore in more detail in our final report).

Overall, Apple wants to see network-level improvements, including better total cost of ownership (TCO) metrics, and across-the-board improvements in the user experience. It adds that 6G should “strive to support diverse device types in the first release, covering different device form factors” including smartphones, watches and XR devices – time to untether the Vision Pro? 

And of course, this being Apple, it notes that “user privacy” should be a “cornerstone for 6G architecture”.

To find out more, and see what other vendors want from 6G, download the free report now!

- Guy Daniels, Director of Content, TelecomTV