I think that Apple will reach the point where they cut Intel out of the supply chain all together. Intel cellular modems are dragging the iPhones down, and someone made the decision to cripple the iPhones with Qualcomm radios so everyone wouldn't buy the Verizon/Sprint version and then unlock it. I'm $ure $ome rea$on wa$ found to ju$tify thi$ de$cision...
Really, I'm surprised Apple hasn't acquired some RF engineers and started designing their own radio chips by now. The T2 chips in the new iMac Pro and MacBook Pro computers show huge performance gains in I/O operations by offloading the CPU from encryption and disk tasks. There is an advantage to designing hardware to execute your OS and software, IBM did that, as did DEC. Apple had a chance with the PowerPC, but Motorola had their design goals and so did IBM. Apple went with Intel and saw improvements in power consumption and performance, but Intel is now stuck trying to go to 10nm while others have moved on to 7nm chip fabrication. And Apple has a history of moving between CPU architectures so it wouldn't surprise me if they abandon the Intel x86 platform in the next five years.
So yes, some will say no matter what Apple does that it's just a way to shake their customers' pockets free of money. After all, why buy an Audi when a Hyundai will take you to the same destination?
(oh, and that Intel LTE Modem chip? I don't have it in my 3 year old phone...)