Qualcomm has some of the best modem engineering in the world and having multiple vendors could result in unequal performance between different versions of the iPhone 7. (When Apple had both TSMC and Samsung manufacturing its A9 processor for iPhone 6s, it resulted in a difference of 5%-7% in battery life performance.)

It’s likely that Apple has done rigorous testing before going with Intel. ”Apple wouldn’t have adopted a chipset without extensive testing,” said Sundeep Rangan, the director of New York University’s wireless department and an IEEE Fellow

If anyone could knock Qualcomm out of some iPhones, it would be Intel. The company has spent billions on acquisitions and research trying to build modems that are good enough to compete with Qualcomm’s. In 2013, Intel’s mobile unit lost $3.15 billion, and we don’t have any more recent numbers since it stopped breaking out mobile, but it’s likely that number hasn’t gone down.

“Building modems for today’s cellphones is an extremely daunting task,” said Rangan. “It has to support a dizzying array of features and get the chips down to a form factor and low power performance.”

Intel’s new business with Apple hasn’t been officially confirmed. Qualcomm and Intel declined to comment, and Apple hasn’t responded to a request for comment. For confirming these kinds of component details, it’s usually best to have a researcher actually crack open a phone and take a look inside, which is likely to happen after the phones go on sale next week.

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