these years, the iPhone 14 and Watch Series 8 aren’t expected to offer significant performance gains over their predecessors, and Apple’s custom Mac processors may be to blame.
The 2010 Apple A4 was the first smartphone chip the company made itself, and every year it makes a new SoC to match its new phones. The annual increase in CPU performance peaked in 2015 with the iPhone 6s’ A9, and while Apple still makes the fastest smartphone chips, the annual speed increases have slowed down so much that the Cupertino giant didn’t even bother. comparing the chip performance of the iPhone 13 with its predecessor.
Are the Mac M-series chips responsible for the iPhone A Bionic’s development delay?
The internet is full of rumors that the 6.1-inch iPhone 14 and 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Max (or iPhone 14 Plus?) will be powered by last year’s A15 Bionic, although Apple is doing a few things here and there. can change and rename.
The more expensive 6.1-inch iPhone 14 Pro and 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Pro Max are said to be powered by the new A16 chip, which will apparently be manufactured on the 5nm process and not the newer 4nm process on which newer ones are used. Android chips are based.
Even the upcoming Watch Series 8 is expected to have the same processing issues as the outgoing model. The company is also said to struggle with modem development, and it’s not entirely clear whether that’s because of Qualcomm patents or hardware issues like overheating.
Are Apple’s chip resources spread too thin?
The internal Mac chips are the company’s most powerful processors and have turned the industry somewhat on its head. Apple has announced five M-series chips within a year and a half and is expected to launch several more next year.
This ostensibly involved allocating some of the testing, development, and production resources to Mac processors. Apple’s chip division apparently demands laser precision, leading to employee burnout. Apple has also lost many engineers in recent years.
Apple’s reliance on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) may also have played a role, as Apple needs the contract chipmaker to manufacture 3nm chips in large quantities.
All of this, coupled with supply bottlenecks and rising chip development costs, could be why Apple is neglecting non-Mac chips.
Gurman points out that this doesn’t seem like a wise move, given that 60 percent of Apple’s revenue comes from products that don’t run on M-series chips.
The good news is that the A15 Bionic was 62 percent faster than competing chips that the best Android phones used, so even with minimal improvements, the A16 Bionic is likely to outperform the new Qualcomm, MediaTek and Samsung chips.