In a new job posting, spotted by MacRumors, the company this week set out to find a “6G Cellular Modem Systems Engineer,” based in San Diego or Sunnyvale, California. The position entails the task of “Defining and designing system-level features and requirements for next-generation cellular modems, with a focus on 6G evolution and advanced PHY/L1 capabilities.” Base salary is in the range of $175,000 to $308,500, so submit your applications soon.
Apple is well aware that its job postings are eagerly scrutinized for evidence of upcoming product development, so this post is important for what it tells us about the company’s progress and how willing it is to make this public. But it has been planning the launch of 6G for a long time. A similar, albeit slightly more subtle, listing was spotted back in 2021, just a year after the iPhone gained 5G support. That post sought “wireless systems research engineers for current and next-generation networks” and then mentioned further down that the next-generation networks in question were, obviously, 6G.
The progression from research engineers to systems engineers (the new list mentions the word research only once, in the context of past experiences) may reflect the changing priorities of the 6G project and its increasing focus on practical applications. But 6G is still a long way from launch; 6G networks are currently expected to appear in the early 2030s. In other words, the first Apple device to support 6G is likely to be at least the iPhone 22 Pro… or maybe the iPhone Duo 5.
