> The problem is that basically Qualcomm is strangling the entire cellphone space. So what if you built a completely new, much faster, much better-in-every-way SoC... if you still have to pay Qualcomm for the entire chipset because they refuse to sell you just the modem without you paying the full bill.

If Qualcomm is that big of a drag on Android (or not-Apple, but it amounts to the same thing) smartphones, maybe the solution is for Google to buy them outright and rearrange their practices.

Sure, it'd be expensive, but not anything Google couldn't afford.