iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air Benchmarks Reveal Speed of A19 Pro Chip

[slippery-pete]

Yes exactly this, Apple targets the mainstream and where it's a power user kind of feature, do it in a smart and intelligent way. I love the way they've implemented a lot of things over the years. Is it all perfect? Of course not but when they add something they are always thinking about the power usage, the privacy and so on it feels. I like that and many others do which is why we buy them.

For those on the Android side that demand they need a phone that must be able to run 10 x 48 x 48 pixel window apps on their phone at the same time, while downloading torrents, while playing Pokemon, while watching 4 TV Shows at the same time... Well there's obviously Android for you. You've found what you need so cool, stick with it but Apple is never going to make a phone for you so stop whining about it and even if they did, we all know you wouldn't buy it anyway.

I’ll tell you what. I had a buddy who retired early from a successful career trading for a hedge fund. He ended up getting job at a local Apple Store to help pass the time in “retirement”. He was an Apple fan and loved talking tech. I still remember him telling me that nine out of every 10 customers, didn’t care about RAM or screen refresh rates…they cared if they could take pictures/video…check their email, send and receive text messages and if they could surf the web. That’s it.

 

[Compile 'em all]

iPhone 17 is the best feature and value.
iPhone 17 Air is for those seeking a larger screen and something novel with iOS.
iPhone 17 Pro unless you have a need for telephone and some other minor features it’s really not worth it and best to wait for a folding iPhone or will it be called iPhone Ultra.

iPhone Air: 12GB ram and A19 Pro CPU
iPhone 17: 8GB ram and A19 CPU

RAM is a massive day-to-day performance difference and will make the iPhone Air feel infinitely faster at many tasks specially as iOS becomes more demanding, and actually more battery efficient (e.g. not reloading tabs in Safari)

 

[g35]

Do people actually need faster telephones? My 2020 SE2 is always as fast as I wish.

it's fast today because Apple put a very fast chip in it 5 years ago. If they had listened to a user of a 2015 iPhone in 2020 saying, well my chip is fast enough (and it probably was) - your 2020 phone would be near useless in 2025. These chips being so overpowered is part of what allows for an iPhone's longevity

 

[FastLaneJB]

I’ll tell you what. I had a buddy who retired early from a successful career trading for a hedge fund. He ended up getting job at a local Apple Store to help pass the time in “retirement”. He was an Apple fan and loved talking tech. I still remember him telling me that nine out of every 10 customers, didn’t care about RAM or screen refresh rates…they cared if they could take pictures/video…check their email, send and receive text messages and if they could surf the web. That’s it.

Bingo. What matters is what the tech makes possible, not the tech itself.

I work in tech, some of us you'd think are power users but all have iPhones. None of them would give any thought to the inability of iOS to have icon packs to reskin your icons or other features Android folks go on about. Everyone is too busy to have time for that, they just want something that works well and iOS is that.

It has good battery life, it's user friendly, the cameras are always good, it's secure, supports all the communication needs they might want including iMessage and FaceTime, Enterprises almost always support them (Not always case with Android) and you can buy a new one, restore everything from old phone and be on your way. It's just far more zero hassle than Android is.

 

[vbctv]

People trashing the iPhone air will finally shut up 🤣. The iPhone air is the phone to buy, sorry pro people.

100% agree. The iPhone Air is like the iPhone X all over again. It's part of the 17 lineup but technically a standalone product hence no 17 in the name. It's a preview likely of the future and even the expected Fold (which will likely be 2 of these Airs together).
And I'm literally commenting on every YouTube video of how the Air is being bashed. Let's go thru it because it's what I'm asking because the Air was my first choice the minute I saw it coming from a 15PM.

1.) A single Mono Speaker - when's the last time you used your phone without AirPods or Headphones?
2.) No mmwave - So you're upset about something only in major metros and only getting 500mb/s 5G speeds instead of 1gb/s which actually saves battery life?
3.) Camera Features - Do you actually use every feature in your camera or if you have how often and how many times. Would you miss it if it's not there...
4.) Battery Life - The Air obviously has a silicon carbon battery, the 27 hour life is likely 100% true, and the battery packs brings it up to 40 hours beating the 17PM, do we remember the days of the 7 & 8 and the battery case that stayed plugged in. Most of us used it, so why be upset about a razor thin battery pack.

So many people are already writing off the Air, but when you have reasonable thought, it is the best option, super thin, and you are helping shape the future of Apple. People sit there an complain the phone is the same every year but as soon as something different comes out, they rip it because a 1st gen product isn't up to their standards. But that's why I ask these 4 questions because it makes you see that the Air is actually the best value phone because most people never use the 'pro' features including myself.

 

[stevelaw]

Does this mean I will finally finish gold stake on all of the decks in Balatro, and do so much faster?😄

 

[DaveN]

Wake me up when you can actually multitask

What multiple tasks do you want to do at the same time on a device that small?

 

[mavere]

Did people see the proportionately massive improvements in the GPU's blur subtests? I bet the 17 series will automatically feel noticeably faster if you come from a previous iPhone that has iOS 26 installed...

 

[jdawgnoonan]

I can't tell the difference in speed between a 13 pro and my 16 pro....doubt this extra speed will be noticeable by many.

Still nice to see, however.

I was using my wife's 14 Pro last night and just for using the web browser it was obviously slow and not as smooth when compared my 16 Pro Max. It was very obvious in the general feel of it. Now maybe that is because I have been using the 16 Pro Max for a year and it is my baseline, but I think the improvements are very evident. Not that they are incredibly important nor maybe even useful for most people. But I sure noticed it.

That said, I find it disappointing that they did not add any features to the Pro such as something similar to what iPad can do with an external display. They said that the A19 Pro has Mac levels of performance, a DEX like experience on an iPhone might be cool.

 

[1037]

People trashing the iPhone air will finally shut up 🤣. The iPhone air is the phone to buy, sorry pro people.

Give me an Air Mini!

 

[mlayer]

1.) A single Mono Speaker - when's the last time you used your phone without AirPods or Headphones?
2.) No mmwave - So you're upset about something only in major metros and only getting 500mb/s 5G speeds instead of 1gb/s which actually saves battery life?
3.) Camera Features - Do you actually use every feature in your camera or if you have how often and how many times. Would you miss it if it's not there...
4.) Battery Life - The Air obviously has a silicon carbon battery, the 27 hour life is likely 100% true, and the battery packs brings it up to 40 hours beating the 17PM, do we remember the days of the 7 & 8 and the battery case that stayed plugged in. Most of us used it, so why be upset about a razor thin battery pack.

So many people are already writing off the Air, but when you have reasonable thought, it is the best option, super thin, and you are helping shape the future of Apple. People sit there an complain the phone is the same every year but as soon as something different comes out, they rip it because a 1st gen product isn't up to their standards. But that's why I ask these 4 questions because it makes you see that the Air is actually the best value phone because most people never use the 'pro' features including myself.

I mostly agree with what you're saying. The Air should be the future because phones should get lighter over time. I intend to buy the Air, maybe after I demo it at a store and read/watch the reviews. The feature set still gives me pause.

1. The only time I listen to the my 15 Pro's speaker is when I get home and am putting away or charging my earbuds. It's mostly about continuous play, as I could with a couple extra steps play the phone's audio through iPhone mirroring on my Mac or switch to a Bluetooth speaker.
2. Never cared about mmWave as I don't currently live or work in a dense, highly urbanized area where someone might encounter it.
3. The only camera feature I expect to miss is the ultrawide camera. I use the 0.5x zoom quite a bit as I take pictures of landscapes and architecture. Maybe 1x will work and I'll adjust, maybe not.
4. I used 50% of my 15 Pro's battery in about 2 hours during my morning commute today. The 2-year old phone has 87% battery health. Then I plugged it in at work and it filled back up to 95% in less than an hour. I'm only worried about battery life during extended road trips, where I will only have problems if I don't plan accordingly with additional battery packs or charging cables.

 

[bradman83]

Good to see the yearly improvements. The new chips are very powerful. Think it will be matching the speeds of older M series chip. Don't think the full power of the chips will be used by most users.

The A18 Pro is already as fast as the M1 in terms of single core, multicore and NPU performance (single core has been faster for a few generations now). The A19 might finally beat the M1 on GPU performance.

 

[TheMountainLife]

What multiple tasks do you want to do at the same time on a device that small?

See my post history in this thread if you are actually curious.

Well there's obviously Android for you. You've found what you need so cool, stick with it but Apple is never going to make a phone for you so stop whining about it and even if they did, we all know you wouldn't buy it anyway.

I've never seen a community of people so against new things until the company says they can have it lol. Some stuff you won't understand until you encounter it yourself. When I switched to a Garmin watch last year, I better understood the complaints and limitations you face compared to Android which allows you to enjoy accessories as advertised.

Looking at all sides what I see is that most people like options and competition. Nobody wins when its incremental cash grabs. Apple is definitely innovating more than they have in the past few years I'll give them that. I don't have brand loyalty to anyone. Produce great tech and I'll buy it.

 

[FastLaneJB]

I've never seen a community of people so against new things until the company says they can have it lol. Some stuff you won't understand until you encounter it yourself. When I switched to a Garmin watch last year, I better understood the complaints and limitations you face compared to Android which allows you to enjoy accessories as advertised.

Looking at all sides what I see is that most people like options and competition. Nobody wins when its incremental cash grabs. Apple is definitely innovating more than they have in the past few years I'll give them that. I don't have brand loyalty to anyone. Produce great tech and I'll buy it.

What makes you think I have my blinkers on? I have an Android also, in fact I've brought quite a few of them to test and especially the folding phones.

You basically said Apple needs to bring multitasking to the iPhone, they did many years ago. You want multi-window. I've seen it and I've tried it and it's utterly pointless in my opinion. I've also never seen anyone with an Android actually using it so it seems like it's a tick box that solves nothing much.

This isn't an iPhone vs Android opinion here. It's just my opinion that regardless, I think it's a waste of time. Like I have a foldable and 2 apps side by side make sense because they format nicely but then you see people complaining because say the Pixel Fold can only run 2 apps and the Samsung Galaxy can have 3 plus a floating window over top. But I mean watch the videos or look at the screenshots, it's utterly pointless.

Apple can do this as they do on an iPad where the screen makes sense. I'm sure they'll let us run 2 apps at a time on the iPhone Fold next year when the screen is open.

 

[NativeMac]

Can anything really push these new pro chips to their limits? On other devices having hefty processors makes sense because there is actually software that can max them out. But what apps can actually push these to their max, no pun intended.

 

[code-m]

iPhone Air: 12GB ram and A19 Pro CPU
iPhone 17: 8GB ram and A19 CPU

RAM is a massive day-to-day performance difference and will make the iPhone Air feel infinitely faster at many tasks specially as iOS becomes more demanding, and actually more battery efficient (e.g. not reloading tabs in Safari)

Apple plays iOS on the safe road, unless AI is ready for showtime you won’t be needing that extra 4GB of RAM anytime soon as the popular model is the base iPhone models due to carrier promotions and subsidies. This year it seems the base model will get an even bigger piece of the sales pie due to the massive upgrade. Battery life is more important to an RAM when considering iOS and most people upgrade or trade-in around the 3-5 year mark, iPhone 17 customers will be safe. My 16 Pro has 8GB RAM and I have not said it’s a slouch since I got it.

 

[code-m]

Can anything really push these new pro chips to their limits? On other devices having hefty processors makes sense because there is actually software that can max them out. But what apps can actually push these to their max, no pun intended.

Until we get some DeX type of ability for iOS or some useful AI more RAM is a nice to have but will be under utilized.

 

[Ethrem]

iPhone Air: 12GB ram and A19 Pro CPU
iPhone 17: 8GB ram and A19 CPU

RAM is a massive day-to-day performance difference and will make the iPhone Air feel infinitely faster at many tasks specially as iOS becomes more demanding, and actually more battery efficient (e.g. not reloading tabs in Safari)

The Air has the A19 Pro with 5 GPU cores instead of 6.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

Can anything really push these new pro chips to their limits? On other devices having hefty processors makes sense because there is actually software that can max them out. But what apps can actually push these to their max, no pun intended.

In my experience [all the Mac OSs, primarily working with databases; I believe iOS devices behave similarly], device operation is not simplistically about "Can anything really push these new pro chips to their limits?" What happens is that things just run better when they have more power and RAM available to them.

Good things happen when the [computing] task gets done more quickly. I will be very unscientific and state that it seems to me that errors have less chance to occur on stronger hardware; when you slow down operation more bad sh*t happens. I first noticed this decades ago and the additional intervening years of observation have reinforced my opinion.

Stronger hardware = smoother operation, less crashes, etc. That is why I sigh and shake my head when folks here go on and on about how they manage to make some underpowered box work, like an old MBA with 8 GB of RAM. WooHoo; not.

 

[TheMountainLife]

What makes you think I have my blinkers on?

You basically said Apple needs to bring multitasking to the iPhone, they did many years ago. You want multi-window. I've seen it and I've tried it and it's utterly pointless in my opinion. I've also never seen anyone with an Android actually using it so it seems like it's a tick box that solves nothing much.

This isn't an iPhone vs Android opinion here. It's just my opinion that regardless, I think it's a waste of time.

I'm sure they'll let us run 2 apps at a time on the iPhone Fold next year when the screen is open.

I have no idea what you mean by blinkers.

I'm not talking about multi-window. Again, just because you don't see the value in something doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. Why do you think jailbreaking was so popular before things became more locked down?

The mindset of "they'll let us" is disappointing. We're obviously 2 different types of users but settling for just barely enough keeps the tech industry stagnant.

 

[name99]

To be exact 5%. From Apple's own comparison.

16 Pro vs 15 Pro - 15%
17 Pro vs 15 Pro - 20%
-----
5% over 16 Pro

Also the CPU works @ 4.26GHz vs 4.04GHz of A18 Pro. So probably 0% IPC improvement.

A19 Pro seems focused on GPU AI stuff.

As expected.
It’s been obvious for a while now that CPU and GPU each upgrade “substantially” on an alternating two year cadence.