So apple conspired with Qualcomm to keep the market off wimax and on patents from Qualcomm, but no longer likes its deal on those patents? So they decide to disable new presumably patented features to begin to switch away from Qualcomm and Qualcomm counter sues for not continuing to help them screw the market?

It is like reading about a civil case launched over an inability to divide booty.

Ok, so is there any credible way to figure out whether somone is buying a Qualcomm iPhone or Intel one?

As a totally noob to state-of-art in mobile modems, I guess Qualcomm chips support the latest specification than Intel one, on paper, but in reality Capex intensive telecom operators are hardly on bleeding edge specification, so performance may very well be equal for the ~2 year cycle-life of a iPhone.

A quick search brings up the following article: https://www.recode.net/2016/9/9/12863302/apple-iphone-7-inte...

To summarize, iPhone 7 models A1660 and A1661 contain Qualcomm modems, whereas models A1778 and A1784 have Intel modems.

(There are two extra iPhone models solid in Japan; A1779 and A1785. I assume they feature Qualcomm.)

Not sure if this is relevant, but my new Intel iPhone 7+ really struggles (1 bar) in areas where the same SIM in my wife's Qualcomm iPhone 6 gets 3-4 bars.

Seems worse with older standards like 3G.

I thought it was common knowledge that the Qualcomm modem iPhone 7 performed better than the Intel one. This particular investigation was reported everywhere when it was released: http://cellularinsights.com/iphone7/

I also don't recall ever seeing that Apple claimed Qualcomm and Intel modems were equivalent. Indeed, they never talk at all about components when they're not Apple-designed, like the A-series CPUs. So is Qualcomm's argument that Apple is lying by omission? Seems tenuous.