TechInsights’ preliminary teardown of the iPhone 18 Pro Max found a Qualcomm Snapdragon X80 modem inside, not Apple’s own C2. The unit it opened is model A3473, the US version of the phone, and Apple’s own US specs page quietly agrees: it lists the Apple C2 cellular modem for iPhone 18 Pro but not for iPhone 18 Pro Max.
The teardown firm published the finding on September 18, the day the phone reached customers. Apple hasn’t commented on it.
What TechInsights found
“The analyzed A3473 contains a Qualcomm Snapdragon X80 5G modem marked SDX80M, alongside Qualcomm’s SDR875 converged RF transceiver,” TechInsights wrote. The firm called it “a notable finding because Apple has promoted its C2 modem as part of the iPhone 18 Pro platform,” and said the Qualcomm hardware “could indicate regional differences or multiple modem configurations within the iPhone 18 lineup.”
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Plenty on the board is still Apple’s. TechInsights identified an Apple wireless combo module marked 339M00479 and labelled Apple N1, an Apple ultra-wideband module, and an Apple mmWave antenna module marked 339M00418 that it hadn’t seen before. The rest of the early parts list includes the A20 Pro with LPDDR5X memory, 256GB of NAND flash, an NXP NFC controller and a Broadcom BCM59367 wireless charging receiver. The firm says deeper analysis is still underway.
Why this looks like a US-only split
TechInsights doesn’t say where it bought its phone, and it opened only one. Apple’s own pages fill in most of the rest.
On Apple’s US tech specs page, the Cellular and Wireless list for iPhone 18 Pro ends with “Apple C2 cellular modem”. The identical list for iPhone 18 Pro Max stops one line short. Apple’s UK and Canadian specs pages, by contrast, list the C2 for both sizes, and they give the Pro Max different model numbers: A3717 in the UK and A3716 in Canada.
Apple’s Identify your iPhone model page is less tidy. Its Pro Max entry reads “A3473 (USA, Puerto Rico, A3716, Japan, Guam, USVI, Canada, Mexico…)”, with A3716 sitting inside the brackets, which looks like a missing bracket rather than a shared model. The iPhone 18 Pro entry on the same page is laid out cleanly, with A3472 for the USA and Puerto Rico and A3713 for Japan, Canada, Mexico and the other markets without a SIM tray. Read alongside the Canadian specs page, the Pro Max appears to follow the same pattern, with A3473 for the US and Puerto Rico and A3716 elsewhere. Apple hasn’t clarified the listing.
That fits what John Gruber of Daring Fireball, who reviewed both phones before launch, wrote on September 17: the lineup uses C2 “in all models worldwide with one notable exception: 18 Pro Max models sold in the United States.” TechInsights hasn’t opened a Pro Max from another region, so the non-US side still rests on Apple’s specs pages and Gruber’s reporting, not a teardown.
Why Apple would still use Qualcomm
Apple hasn’t explained the split. Gruber thinks it is minimal compliance with Apple’s 2023 supply deal with Qualcomm, which Qualcomm announced at the time as covering “smartphone launches in 2024, 2025 and 2026.” He also predicts the US Pro Max “will almost certainly be the last product Apple ever ships with a Qualcomm modem.” Both are his reading, not anything Apple has confirmed.
Does it matter if you own one
Probably not day to day. Gruber used both sizes for a week and “didn’t notice one whit of difference network-performance-wise.” His caution is power: he writes that Apple’s C-series modems are “noticeably more power-efficient than Qualcomm’s,” though the US Pro Max still beat last year’s 17 Pro Max on battery life in his use. Apple rates the Pro Max at up to 45 hours of video playback, the longest of any iPhone, and doesn’t publish separate figures by region.
Apple’s US specs list the same 5G bands for A3472 and A3473, including mmWave bands n258, n260 and n261, and nothing about setup changes. Our eSIM activation guide still applies.
A second teardown looks inside the smaller Pro
Repair channel REWA Technology posted its own teardown of the iPhone 18 Pro on YouTube on September 18. The channel says it examined the internal structure, motherboard and cooling system, and what the changes “could mean for future repairs.” The biggest visible change is at the top of the display: Gruber reports that “Apple moved the Face ID infrared camera under the display,” in the top-left corner under the status bar clock, which is how Apple shrank the Dynamic Island this year.
