Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
A16 Chip in iPhone 14 Pro Reportedly Costs Apple Over Twice as Much as A15 Chip
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I went 11 Pro max to 13 Pro , and not really noticed a difference speed wise.
Are you doing anything particularly taxing where the difference is noticed?
General usage has felt the same since about the 11 Pro series to me.
I’m not worried about people hating me, I’m used to it.
But there does seem to be a lot of hate and disgust on here towards buyers of the 14/14 Plus and towards Apple for making their decision to leave A15 chips in the standard 14 line.
I’m glad the buying of last years Pro models is gaining momentum. Especially for those wanting all the features they can get for cheaper. But a lot just want a brand new phone with a larger screen and lighter weight. Shoot, some just like the colors.
The problem is a forum discussing this type of thing is likely to be heavily occupied by tech snobs who are mostly interested in the most expensive devices. Away from the internet people probably won’t give a toss what phone you are using most of the time.
I didn’t get the 14 or 14 Plus as my upgrade, not because it’s not a great phone, but because the 13 Pro Max was the same price as the 14 Plus. For me the Pro features made more sense and let’s be honest the A15 chip is good enough in these phones for many years yet. The 14’s are great phones, they just needed to be £100 cheaper in my opinion.
How would Apple eating this cost play into the “Apple is greedy and pure evil” narrative I always read about here? Looking forward to the logical gymnastics commentary, based on zero inside knowledge, but said with un-shakeable certainty. I’m surprised there isn’t more in these comments already actually.
Apple is a company like any other, and a lot goes on behind the scenes that we don’t know about. When you keep those in mind, there is much much less to get riled up about.
Apple is a company like any other, and a lot goes on behind the scenes that we don’t know about. When you keep those in mind, there is much much less to get riled up about.
Last edited:
Key word here... "Reportedly". If Apple wanted to let us know what their true sales and costs are for any product, the could easily let us know.
They choose to keep customers and investors in the dark. Minimal financial reporting. I'd keep your skepticism levels high for any rumored financial info that has more detail than their financial reporting.
They choose to keep customers and investors in the dark. Minimal financial reporting. I'd keep your skepticism levels high for any rumored financial info that has more detail than their financial reporting.
I have so many thoughts.
From a business and marketing perspective I get why there’s such a push for year over year hardware performance gains.
It just gets weird when you start running up against cost increases of this magnitude to cover much more iterative performance gains. And a sentiment like “I guess we’re just going to have to get used to paying even more”.
And I suspect theres a bit of a cyclical situation in the hardware/software stack, too. As the hardware gets faster, the need to optimize to the bare metal, John Carmack style, diminishes. So it’s easy for software to start demanding more powerful hardware simply as a substitution for optimization. And I don’t mean that as a developer criticism; again the need to churn out new and shiny stuff to keep your consumers buying likely forces a more rushed approach.
It’s just getting a little bonkers. I’m not a Luddite, but I find I most often need to update not because of some fancy new feature that my old device can’t handle, but because the basics somehow accumulate so much cruft that it’s impossible to type a message or scoll a listview without enormous lag. I often feel like I’m just buying to return to some previous performance level (and yes sure there’s some generational improvements that come along as well)
All that’s to say I feel like from the consumers perspective a lot could be gained by slowing down a bit and letting things evolve according to when they are ready, rather than a quarterly earnings plan. But from a business perspective I get why that won’t happen. 🙃
From a business and marketing perspective I get why there’s such a push for year over year hardware performance gains.
It just gets weird when you start running up against cost increases of this magnitude to cover much more iterative performance gains. And a sentiment like “I guess we’re just going to have to get used to paying even more”.
And I suspect theres a bit of a cyclical situation in the hardware/software stack, too. As the hardware gets faster, the need to optimize to the bare metal, John Carmack style, diminishes. So it’s easy for software to start demanding more powerful hardware simply as a substitution for optimization. And I don’t mean that as a developer criticism; again the need to churn out new and shiny stuff to keep your consumers buying likely forces a more rushed approach.
It’s just getting a little bonkers. I’m not a Luddite, but I find I most often need to update not because of some fancy new feature that my old device can’t handle, but because the basics somehow accumulate so much cruft that it’s impossible to type a message or scoll a listview without enormous lag. I often feel like I’m just buying to return to some previous performance level (and yes sure there’s some generational improvements that come along as well)
All that’s to say I feel like from the consumers perspective a lot could be gained by slowing down a bit and letting things evolve according to when they are ready, rather than a quarterly earnings plan. But from a business perspective I get why that won’t happen. 🙃
Microchip manufacturing is still not meeting demand. Expansion is extremely difficult because of the backlog around manufacturing equipment. These delays can easily build up. So the process is not yielding well. So in the end either Apple sucks it up or releases the new phones without a new fancy chip. When it comes to process size, we're at the point where physics is pushing back. Just because a process is possible, doesn't mean it will yield well in bulk manufacturing.
What is truly amazing is that the original Macintosh CPU was 3500nm. Now we are debating if an Apple CPU is 4nm or 5nm.
From that article:
Once we add USB-C to the future iPhone 15, aside from this A16 offering more performance for the larger photo sensor and image processing that is indeed the question. Not sure this hidden price increase matters that much to Apple, as other aspects of the latest iPhone 14 Pro's are still very advanced and maintain their appeal. Perhaps future SoC lots will be eventually less expensive, but initially A16 are more expensive.
How exactly does Apple "hardcore" negotiate with TSMC?
Qualcomm ran back to TSMC because of how ****** Samsung's 4nm process was. It was worse than TSMC's N7 in terms of power consumption.
Apple also tried to hardcore negotiate with Qualcomm. They begged Qualcomm to take them back and paid $6B for that privilege.
It's never a good idea to negotiate with your sole supplier who also happens to be in the pole position.
Last edited:
How are you defining what’s needed? Are you assuming no new technology or features that require additional CPU or GPU?
Are you assuming the only benefit is speed or power consumption?
Are you assuming that the increase in chip fab costs can’t be offset with other advances?
Interested in hearing why you think a ‘better’ processor isn’t necessary.
I’m with you on this. The endless upgrades in hardware can go pro then base in my opinion. I’d like software upgrades for o be the focus.
The gas pump, grocery prices, generalized inflation didn’t prepare you for that? Apple hardly needs to prepare us…the whole world is preparing us.
I own a small grocery store and my suppliers all announced a 30-40% increase in costs for products this past year. That's the price I need to pay just to bring products in to stock my shelves.
Apple needs to pay for everything, from design to manufacturing to assembly to shipping to support. We have tremendous value in our devices given how much sheer capability that they have.
A 20% increase in today's market is not unrealistic, just unfair.
There is a silver lining in all this, normally in very competitive marketplaces such as TVs and smartphones, these vendors can't really raise prices, because it gives the competition an edge. So this comparison to large grocery store chain store monopolies, along with oil industry is because you're stuck with lack of choices raising consumer prices which isn't the same.
Last edited:
Agreed, too. Unfortunately, consumers have become addicted to annual product announcements. Apple could not buck that trend given that Google, Samsung. etc. all adhere to that yearly cycle, too.
I always think back to Windows XP, and how long it held on as a product. It was the regular updates that kept it alive, so your point is valid.