The A12Z Bionic
Interestingly, rather than packing in the enhanced A13X chip that we would have expected, Apple is instead including an entirely new chip, the A12Z Bionic, which clearly iterates on the A12X found in the 2018 iPad Pro. The exact improvements aren’t entirely clear, but Apple promises that it will be able to handle “the most demanding tasks” including 4K video editing and 3D modelling, and notes that it includes an eight-core GPU and “enhanced thermal architecture and tuned performance controllers.” The A12Z also appears to feature new “computer vision algorithms” that have been specifically designed for the new LiDAR scanner.
It’s a pretty significant shift for Apple, which has traditionally included “X” versions of the same CPUs in its current iPhone models, so it will be interesting to see how its performance compares to the A13 in the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro.