A16 chip only in iPhone 14 Pro, confirmations continue

June 2, 2022

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First of all, at the beginning of 2022, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo was the first to report that the new generation of iPhone would have versions that would still have the A15 Bionic chip. This rumor continued until other media also corroborated it. Today, the TrendForce medium also reports that at least two versions of the iPhone 14 will have the new A16 chip inside.

Only some privileged models for A16 chip

Yesterday, the medium TrendForce indicated in a world market report about smartphones, that the Cupertino company will only have four versions for the iPhone 14. The models will have their presentation during the second half of the year, although among these models, only the “Pro series” would be the only ones to have the new processor, which would have to be the A16 chip.

The only changes that the regular versions of iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max will have would be a small update to their processor. Well, the chip they will use will be the A15 Bionic, same from the previous generation. Nevertheless, now it would have 6 GB of LPDDR4X RAM instead of 4 GB as in the iPhone 13.

Although a rumor of this kind would not sound like Apple, the launch of a new generation iPhone but with a processor from last year is a continuous rumor. This type of information began at the time with Ming-Chi Kuo reports in March, although months later external sources would also have their own confirmations. Indeed, until now iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max would continue to have exclusively A15, while iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max would already include the A16 Bionic.

It is still unknown why Apple made this particular decision. Even with this, there is not much hope that the company will give the reasons. However, analysts may have an explanation and this would be the shortage of chips, which is already a recurring theme in this sector. It may be that due to this precarious situation, Apple decided to “affect” only part of the production chain for the iPhone 14.

Nikkei Asia, as well as analyst Jeff Pu, through some reports have some bad news. Both claim that the production of one of the iPhone 14 models will not advance for at least three weeks. This delay could get worse for the regular models of this new generation if the hardware they use were to change.

iPhone 14 still with A15

By now, the amount of commercial emphasis Apple puts into its chips is undeniable. That is, like the popular M1 chip, which comprises an upgraded A14 Bionic chip with more CPU and GPU cores. If you think about it, the strategy is in how they sell it, because the M1 makes it look like it’s not just that improved version of the A14, looking like something totally new.

This suggests that there are currently two versions for the A15 processor. the well-known 4 GB of RAM with a quad-core GPU, which you will find integrated in the iPhone 13; On the other hand, there is the version of 6 GB of RAM with a five-core GPU present for the iPhone 13 Pro devices. So, if the iPhone 14 will have 6 GB of RAM, it remains to wait until at least for the regular models they integrate the A15 with all five GPU cores.

There is also a possibility that Apple will add the renaming strategy for this chip. For example, something similar to what happens with the Apple Watch series 7 and 6, since both contain the same CPU. However, they are named differently, being referred to as “Apple S7” and “Apple S6” respectively. This also has a reason and that is due to internal issues related to the SoC.

At the moment it only remains to speculate, at least until the end of the year, shortly before the respective announcements of the iPhone. Meanwhile, there are already some rumors about the iPhone 14: