MacworldLets talk about Severance.Perseverance.See what the Macalope did there? Its a little play on words. Wordplay is a delightful way to draw a reader in. By tricking them. Anyway, the horny one doesnt actually want to talk about Severance right now because he hasnt seen last weeks episode yet.Instead lets talk about Apples new C1 modem, which is almost like talking about prestige television but more boring.Look, not every column is going to be wall-to-wall thrills and spills.Still, you have to hand it to Apple. The companys travails with this modem were the butt of many jokes. Not that the Macalope ever stooped to making any. Cough. He doesnt know what column you were reading.After acquiring Intels modem division in 2019, the company seemingly struggled to ship a modem worthy of the C1 moniker. After repeatedly being rumored to appear soon, it took six years before it finally shipped in the iPhone 16e. But ship it did and the results are pretty good, considering.It seems that maybe it wasnt so much that Apple was struggling to get the modem to work, its that it was struggling to get it to work really well. While it doesnt support mmWave 5G in the U.S., its still a processor that can proudly sit next to its M-series relatives at Easter dinner. (The Macalope knows St. Patricks Day is closer, but when looking for a timely reference, Drink itself blind next to its M-series relatives on St. Patricks Day isnt quite the image you wanna go for.)IDGThe company could have pulled the plug like it did with Project Titan but it stuck with it. This is an interesting and timely example of Apples perseverance at a time when another project is facing its own delays: Apple confirmed that the can full of highly anticipated conversational version of Siri was being kicked down the proverbial road.Its going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year.Apple PRs Jacqueline Roy in a statement to John Gruber (March 7, 2025)Since the company seemed to think it would be able to release chatty Siri relatively soon, it seems like this is probably more like the modem project than Project Titan. But, then, it actually showed a picture of AirPower, and look how that turned out.Apples chip development is obviously a different beast than its software development. Still, perseverance has paid off for the company in software, as well. Remember Maps? Sure you do, you used it earlier today to find that place with the thing (hospital specializing in fungal treatment). When Maps first relaunched with Apples own data it was, as the French like to say, a bit of an el disastro (disclaimer: that is not French, no French person says that). Now while you can have a reasonable argument over which is better, Apple Maps or Google Maps, theres no denying that Apples offering is pretty good, certainly Good Enough.Honestly, if it can get conversational Siri to be Good Enough they should just go with that. You may have noticed the quotes the Macalope puts around that modifier. Thats because no LLM can really have a conversation with you. Theyre all just faking it until they make it.Or they tell you to eat rocks and glue.If youd like to receive regular news and updates to your inbox sign up forMacworlds newsletters, including The Macalope and Apple Breakfast, David Prices weekly, bite-sized roundup of all the latest Apple news and rumors.