The A18 Pro also has more cache than the standard A18, which can also improve performance in certain scenarios, but most users would never notice the difference at all. I'm interested to see if they continue to make two distinct versions of the A series chips, or will revert to binning one chip.
The article is talking about a product targeted at me. A product that is already compromised concerning battery life. A product that we already knew would not have the best performance or specs compared to the iPhone 17 Pro range.
I would say that in my experience there is a bias amongst many IT people towards Android. I think if those biased users had an iPad or Mac and experienced the ecosystem that bias would go away (the Windows Phone Link app is not great, and I am not a target customer for Chrome OS either). That said, in my experience, most of the people with that bias are also Windows die hards and what they actually prefer about Android is the ability to tweak the hell out of the UI. I have personally switched back and forth between iOS and Android, and when I have tweaked the hell out of the UI, it always lacked so much polish due to the inner workings of the OS that I could not tweak that I had to go back to the out of the box OS so that my device had had consistency. And that is the heart of why I prefer IOS outside of the Apple ecosystem benefits with my other devices. It is extremely consistent in design. I personally really like Samsung's One UI as well. I also was one who thought that Windows Phone back in the day had a lot of potential, but in typical Microsoft fashion they released it well before it was actually ready and then also Google really helped put the nail in Windows Phone's coffin by not supporting it.
I think IT people are split fairly evenly between iphone and Android, Mac and Windows. I personally use an iphone, Macbook Pro, Apple Watch and Airpod Pro's. Granted, I have lot of experience with Windows, Chromebook, and Android and used the heck out of all of them. I don't care for any company's ecosystems to be honest, not even Apple's and avoid using ecosystems in general as much as possible primarily for security reasons. Ecosystems are very close to being the same between companies (apple, google, samsung) anyways.
When I say ecosystem what I really mean is that Apple has managed to make my iPhone, iPads, and MacBook Pro all feel like they are almost a single device because they all basically take me to the same starting point. The biggest thing that tempts me towards Android is that I also use Fedora Linux as a desktop quite a lot and Android would be more friendly with that system than iOS and Apple services are. Apple makes accessing iCloud based services from Linux very annoying. Windows is only in my house virtually or as a mostly unused partition on my Linux machine. I have worked professionally in Windows for over 25 years and it is not that I dislike it really, but it bores me and Microsoft is too heavy handed with things like Edge and Copilot — plus I think it is almost always consistently inconsistent and ugly for the most part (though the dynamic desktop colors stuff is cool). Windows is the worst OS for just getting out of the users way.
I agree with Windows, at home my wife and I have done away with Windows in favor of Mac. We use Windows at work because we have to not because we want to. I agree MS absolutely is too heavy handed pushing things and keeps going in the wrong direction with Windows in my opinion and each release is worse than the previous.
Microsoft released Windows 11 in October of 21 and here we are in 2025 and they have not yet addressed all of the legitimate downgrades in the OS yet. The new (and much improved) Start menu, which would be less necessary if they just included their "Powertoys Run" feature as part of the OS (It is like Spotlight), is still only available to Insiders. Microsoft really struggles in improving their products. I think it is because they are too distracted with CoPilot which is honestly about as annoying as Clippy was back in the day. It is also likely that no top end IT talent who works at Microsoft wants to get stuck on the Windows team.
Maybe, but don’t you think it’s worth a try? Why shouldn’t Apple continue to innovate (something these forum posters say is dead)? There has been a fair amount of interest on these forums for the 17 Air, & I’m going to buy the 17 Pro Max when it comes out. Reading just MacRumors you’d think Apple would be bankrupt by now, but that’s not the real world. Apple continues to do great, despite the many obstacles in the current climate. 👍🏻
The reduction of stress by not having to find an outlet in public places or lug around battery packs when traveling lightly is a big deal.
Thermal constraints? Thinner=less concern about thermals.
Apple's upcoming iPhone 17 Air will include an A19 Pro chip with a 5-core GPU, according to Weibo leaker Fixed Focus Digital. The Chinese account, which has over two million followers, claims that only the iPhone 17 Pro models will have the full 6-core GPU A19 Pro configuration.
It's the second time in as many months that Fixed Focus Digital has claimed to reveal accurate details about the ultra-thin device's chip specifications. The reduced GPU core count suggests Apple is using binned chips based on yields, or may be managing thermal constraints in the slimmer form factor, but most users are unlikely to notice the performance difference during typical usage.
The claim contradicts earlier reporting from industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who over a year ago predicted the iPhone 17 Air would use a standard A19 chip, rather than the Pro variant.
The Weibo leaker also claims that the base iPhone 17 model will use an A19 chip. A few months ago, supply chain analyst Jeff Pu said the device would have an A18 chip, but he has since rescinded the claim – he now also expects the regular iPhone 17 model to be equipped with the A19.
Fixed Focus Digital previously broke the news ahead of launch about the iPhone 16e name for Apple's upcoming iPhone SE successor.
Apple is expected to debut the iPhone 17 lineup next month, with an announcement rumored to be happening on Tuesday, September 9, so we don't have long to wait to find out all the specifics.
Article Link: iPhone 17 Air to Feature A19 Pro Chip With Reduced GPU Performance
I have the 16e and it’s incredibly light & a joy to use.
