My expectations for Apple are higher than what other, lesser competitors are doing. You're free to set a low bar for expectations if you'd like though. Reusing the same processor from last year's models is lazy and cheap on their part.
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Kuo: Only iPhone 14 Pro Models to Get 'A16' Chip, Standard Models to Retain A15
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I wonder if we are going to get a bit of the language used on the M series of chips.
Perhaps A16 for the mainstream iPhone 14 duo (5nm, minor efficiency gains, like the S5 to the S6 was), and A16 Bionic or A16 Pro (or something like that) for the iPhone 14 Pro duo (3nm, bigger efficiency gains, faster speeds, etc.)
Nah. The reality is that the chips got powerful enough that the new chips really don't provide much additional value to most of the customers. Now having the latest chip provides longevity and that is very nice. But for most users, if you put a new battery in a used iPhone 8 it would be fine. And the things that user would miss the most would be the better camera. Not how well the chip performs.
I think it makes some sense to start giving customers a choice between a more powerful chip and a less powerful chip. And not forcing the user who has little need for the current best available chip, but might like other phone improvements, to buy more chip than they need or could even use for years to come. Or worse, leave them with only older and completely upgraded phones.
Yes, you're right. For us nerds it makes a difference.
Let's look at how Apple sells iPhone in the real world.
6.7" Super Retina XDR display with ProMotion
A15 Bionic chip
All-new Telephoto Camera
22h battery life
Come September 2022, the iPhone 14 Max would have 3 out of 4 things that are virtually identical to the 14 Pro Max. (Most people couldn't care less about ProMotion.) Putting an A16 in the regular iPhone 14 actually makes no sense from a sales perspective.
I really hesitated buying an iPhone with a notch and face id, but I ended up getting the iPhone 11 when my iPhone 8 Plus battery started to fade. I have never regretted making that switch.
If they do away with the mini then the 6.1 could replace the 599 price point. And the new max size would be 699 then. And I’m fine with that. Though maybe I’d pick up a 13 mini and a steep discount to replace my 12…..decision decisions.
Currently, the 13 mini is $699 and the 13 is $799. If Apple lowers price of iPhone 14, then 6.1" 14 would take the $699 spot and the 6.7" 14 would take the $799 spot.
Same with me, I wasted £1100 for nothing I don’t even wanna use it anymore lol I hope wwdc brings a huge update to iPadOS but I doubt it
I haven't really cared about SoC speed since the iPhone 7 or so. But I do care about camera quality, screen quality, and battery life.
How so Jpack, surely advertising the Iphone 14 WITH an A16 is likely to make more sales and garner interest, than advertising the iphone 14 with an previous gen A15 right? When the average Apple consumer sees an older Chip in a new iphone, its gonna be a turn off no matter how you look at it.
However if Apple reduces the prices of the regular iphone 14's in compensation, then this is a different story altogether.
Unless the Pros get $100 more expensive, so they keep 6.1 at $799 and 6.7 goes $899.
The iPad is still the same as the day you bought it. It hasn’t failed to live up to it’s promise. This is something that we should all keep in mind. You buy a product for the features and benefits that it has, not the ones you think it might offer in the possible future.
I have a 2018 iPad Pro and still use it for several hours each day but mainly as very nice consumption device. I have never been tempted to upgrade to one of the newer models as they don’t offer much more than what I already have.
LOL, is this a confirmation that this is a fake account?
iPhone 14 will sport the A16, no doubt. Now it could be differentially binned/clocked, but makes no sense for Apple to let the 14 keeps the same A15 as the 13 and 2022 SE. Beaides, Apple would need the economies of scale to push the cost of fabricating the A16 down, so only putting it on the Pro models (which are selling less than the regular iPhone model) is strange.
iPhone 14 will sport the A16, no doubt. Now it could be differentially binned/clocked, but makes no sense for Apple to let the 14 keeps the same A15 as the 13 and 2022 SE. Beaides, Apple would need the economies of scale to push the cost of fabricating the A16 down, so only putting it on the Pro models (which are selling less than the regular iPhone model) is strange.
Apple would have to expect to be heavily constrained to actually do this. Media will rip them a new one for this, and I can already hear the word of mouth that this year's iPhone is not worth buying - pretty much what happened to the 7. They really need some kicker to sell the 14 with the last gen chip unless they discontinue the 13 immediately and start the 14 100 bucks cheaper. That could work. Other than that they need a real kicker to sell this thing.
Those flat camera lenses for example would attract a few people. Every person I know that has a 12/13 is terribly annoyed that you can't put your phone flat on a table even in a case. Or maybe they finally bring back touch ID (in the power button) additionally to Face ID, which is something also a lot of people really want back. OR.... well, they could sell finally offering USB-C instead of Lighting as actually a big feature (and not preempting seemingly inevitable regulatory intervention from us evil Europeans).
No idea, but it has to be something quite substantial if this rumor is actually true. Which it might be, sure. N4 will be crowded. A16, M2 for iPP and MB(A), possibly even the M2 Pro right on its heels (although I doubt that). And I don't think Apple has basically exclusive supply of N4 like they did with N5. Mostly because N3 apparently is a bust until further notice.
Those flat camera lenses for example would attract a few people. Every person I know that has a 12/13 is terribly annoyed that you can't put your phone flat on a table even in a case. Or maybe they finally bring back touch ID (in the power button) additionally to Face ID, which is something also a lot of people really want back. OR.... well, they could sell finally offering USB-C instead of Lighting as actually a big feature (and not preempting seemingly inevitable regulatory intervention from us evil Europeans).
No idea, but it has to be something quite substantial if this rumor is actually true. Which it might be, sure. N4 will be crowded. A16, M2 for iPP and MB(A), possibly even the M2 Pro right on its heels (although I doubt that). And I don't think Apple has basically exclusive supply of N4 like they did with N5. Mostly because N3 apparently is a bust until further notice.
Large phablet sales are increasing. Everyone wants a 6.7" iPhone. People are going to buy 6.7" no matter what. It comes down to A15 for $899 or A16 for $1,199.
What are consumers going to do? Stomp their feet and not buy?
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TSMC N4 offers only 5% logic area reduction compared to N5. A15 is 20% larger than A14. A16 is 20% larger than A15. Why would Apple artificially bin or downclock such a big and expensive chip? The economic math doesn't work out because transistor scaling is slowing down big time.
Yield is never 100%. Binned chips are not artificially binned just because, but binned because they don't come out perfect. This way Apple is not wasting any Chips that are not perfect. Instead of throwing them away, they are binned down (eg less GPU core, lower clock speed).
Then what's the point of the regular iPhone 14 If it has the same chip (and therefore features) as the iPhone 13 (which will be $100 less), especially if the design is not drastically changed?
One way this could make sense is if there will only be one iphone 14, a 6.7" version. At least the larger size justifies the extra cost over the iPhone 13.
From a real-world perspective, what alternative do customers have? Not buy an iPhone 14 and go Snapdragon 8? Is the Snapdragon 8 at risk of outperforming A15?
The consumers in the market for iPhone 14 are coming from iPhone X or XR. These are mainstream customers who upgrade every 3-4 years. Are they going to say, "Nope! A15 isn't fast enough compared to my A11/A12!"
The tech savvy customers on annual upgrade cycle are buying the Pro anyway, which has the A16.
TSMC's N4 yield would have to be terrible. Given N4 is an optical shrink with more EUV steps versus N5, you can bet N4 is pretty good.
We're talking about enough crappy A16 to fulfill mainstream iPhone 14 volumes here. Not likely.
That "20%" larger area comes from doubling the cache, and they are not going to do it again anytime soon (A15 has more cache per core than any other apple silicon chip including the ultra).
iPhone 13 has 4-core GPU. iPhone 14 likely uses 5-core.
Camera sensor
Form factor (rearrange lenses a la iPhone 13)
4GB vs. 6GB RAM (Apple now advertises RAM on iPad Air)