A rumor has been circulating for some time that the new iPhone 14 models will come with different chips. While the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max are said to be equipped with the new A16 bionic chip, the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max could only get the A15 chip from the predecessor. A new report seems to confirm this rumor.
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo hinted back in March that only the iPhone 14 Pro models might be equipped with Apple’s latest chip, the A16 Bionic. According to him, the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max should also get the A15 chip. A report of the Chinese market research institute TrendForce now confirms Kuo’s information.
Is Apple pursuing a new sales strategy with the different chips?
The TrendForce report is mainly about the analysis of the smartphone market in the first quarter of 2022. However, it also mentions the iPhone 14 models that will be released this fall. Unlike in the past, the latest processors will only be used in the Pro series, it says there. TrendForce suspects an adapted sales strategy behind this decision. With rising inflation, the purchasing behavior of users is changing. Apple’s new strategy makes the iPhone 14 series more attractive to more buyers, the report says.
From old to new: will the iPhone 14 still get a “new” chip?
However, as the website 9to5Mac notes, the majority of iPhone buyers might not even realize that the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max have an older chip. Because Apple has a clever strategy when it comes to naming its own chips. The website cites the M1 chip as an example. This is basically just an improved A14 chip with multiple CPU and GPU cores. Apple could have called this chip A14X, finds 9to5Mac. But M1 sounds like something completely new.
There are currently two versions of the A15 chip, one with 4GB of memory and four GPU cores from the iPhone 13 and another with 6GB of memory and five GPU cores from the iPhone 13 Pro. Since all iPhone 14 models will have 6GB of memory, 9to5Mac assumes that the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max will get the A15 variant from the iPhone 13 Pro – possibly with a new name for the chip.
Tag: iphone design, iphone 14, apple iphone, iphone release