How Apple thinks about the 6G evolution

With its C1 5G chip and huge networking tech development division, Apple is in the networking business. So, the company is heavily enmeshed in the development of the next-generation 6G networking standard.

Apple shared its vision and priorities for the in-development 6G standard at a recent 3GPP workshop session in Seoul, where it stressed the need for good user experiences, stable and consistent networking operations, backwards compatibly and energy efficiency in 6G.

It also stressed that once 6G is introduced, the feature and devices it is supposed to support should be available from day one.

Apple’s now-confirmed appeal against the UK’s deeply authoritarian and technologically dangerous attack on personal data encryption proves privacy and security are important to the company. That’s why it is calling for user privacy to be a “cornerstone for 6G architecture.”

(The request may turn out to be moot, given the sheer scale of data picked up by mobile telcos.)

The presentation made at the workshop delves into extensive detail, but one of the shortcomings it thinks needs to be fixed in 6G, as compared to 5G, is consistency.

6G for the rest of us

You see, when the latter standard became available it arrived in several “flavors,” not all of which were used. This created confusion and likely dampened adoption/delivery of relevant use cases. Think about the 5G in your phone? Is it really 5G? It depends on which flavor you use.

Apple, which has been working on 6G for years, thinks 6G needs to ship with extra simplicity and should support most devices from the get-go. Somewhat surprisingly, faster connectivity isn’t as important to the company as consistent coverage, good battery life, and lack of latency. 

In other words, it wants 6G to be as consistent and easy to use/deploy as any Apple product. And given its unique position as a mobile device vendor, Apple is also urging standards setters to push for low energy — because it knows that decreasing energy requirements for networking technology dramatically extends battery life.

When it comes to architecture, Apple is pushing for AI/ML support within and by this standard, integrated sensing and communications (ISAC), spectrum sharing, and wide radio support. It also wants better integration between satellite and terrestrial networks, and casts shade on the idea of new 6G spectrum being made available.

When it comes to backwards compatibility, the company notes that while 6G is not expected to be backward-compatible, it should support later-introduced 5G features and use cases from the start. It must also be forward-compatible, meaning new features, services, and use cases can be rolled out over time.

The company stressed that this may be particularly important for new AI-driven networking features. But to my mind, it makes the networking tech something that can be improved incrementally over time, just like any other software-driven tech should be.

Apple is consistent

To a great extent, Apple’s priorities in 6G development reflect its wider approach to everything it makes: user simplicity, low energy consumption, and consistent experiences. It’s no surprise it wants the same in next-gen networking tech – a “clean and lean design from day one.”

Apple’s thoughts are likely to be adopted by some of the many companies that form the 3GPP 6G working groups, particularly because it now has some highly-respected networking standard experts on its staff. But we won’t know whether its attempt succeeds until the first set of specifications are published at the end of 2029.

It’s clear Apple would like the spec to be active by 2030, and the urgency with which it sees consistency and full standard support suggests it will not be late to ship a 6G iPhone.

You can read more about Apple’s approach here, with an extensive (recommended) report that looks at the many more submissions from others in the space made at the workshop and available from Telecom TV.

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