Will Apple Include Last Year’s A15 Chip in the iPhone 14? Sources Say It May Be Slightly Modified with a New Name
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According to Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple plans to release the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max with the A15 Bionic chip while saving the A16 for the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. This hasn’t happened before in the history of the iPhone, but given the current situation, I wouldn’t discard it.
I’ve said a few times that Apple wants to follow the strategy of differentiating the Pro and non-Pro versions of their devices more and more every year, but this might be too much.
As I didn’t know a thing about this matter, I went ahead and asked my sources what they thought about it, and here’s what they said.
My primary supply chain source suggests that Apple can’t currently produce as many chips as it wants to, so he believes there is the chance what Kuo said is true.
He says Apple didn’t consider all these supply chain issues when the company decided to manufacture all the chips for its products, which is now affecting the company.
Up until 2020, Apple outsourced all Mac chip production to Intel, but now the Cupertino-based company has to take care of all of it, and there are issues to match the demand. My source suggests that including the A15 Bionic in the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max might help solve these issues.
Another source suggests that Apple would never say the iPhone 14 and 14 Max have the A15. My source says there is the chance the Cupertino-based company slightly modifies the A15 Bionic but calls it the A16.
This would mean the chip Apple has been working on for the Pro iPhones is finally called A16 “Pro,” or something like that; this would make the most sense to me. This way, Apple can save quite a lot of money, differentiate the Pro and non-Pro devices even more, and help solve its partners’ supply chain issues.
My Take? It Makes Sense
As I said, that makes a lot of sense. Apple can’t afford hundreds of headlines explaining how the iPhone 14 has the same chip as the iPhone 13 and how Apple never changes anything and only cares about people who can pay over a thousand dollars for the Pro iPhones.
Apple can do whatever it wants most of the time, and the company simply doesn’t care about the critics, but this would be too much. Imagine this headline: “Apple launches the iPhone 14 with the same chip as its $429 budget phone.” That doesn’t sound so good. However, nobody will notice if Apple calls that chip A16 instead of A15.
In fact, the company has already done this with the latest Apple Watch. The Series 7’s chip is the same as the Series 6’s chip, but Apple updated the naming anyway.
The Cupertino-based company could call the chip in the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max A16 Pro, which sounds amazing to me.
Let me know in the comments below what you think about this. I hope you found this article helpful. As always, have a fantastic day.
[The information provided in this article has NOT been confirmed by Apple and may be speculation. Provided details may not be factual. Take all rumors, tech or otherwise, with a grain of salt.]
