In accordance with a leak despatched to MacRumors, the iPhone identifiers (allegedly discovered on Apple’s backend, although no particulars are given) means that this yr’s iPhone 16 fashions will all run an A18 chip.
It’s typical for iPhone identifiers to have the format “iPhone xx,x” the place the numbers earlier than the comma signify the A-series processor and the quantity after the comma is every totally different mannequin. For instance, “iPhone 15,5” is an iPhone 15 Plus, “iPhone 15, 4” is a daily iPhone 15, and “iPhone 16,1” is the iPhone 15 Professional. In iPhone identifiers, 14 is for telephones with an A15, 15 is for telephones with an A16, and 16 is for telephones with an A17.
The found identifiers are:
- iPhone17,1
- iPhone17,2
- iPhone17,3
- iPhone17,4
- iPhone17,5
That’s 5 iPhone fashions with a “17” identifier, suggesting they’ll all use an A18 chip. It’s doable all 5 are due for launch this yr—iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Professional, and 16 Professional Max, plus some type of “iPhone Extremely” higher-end gadget. We expect it’s extra possible that one in all them represents an iPhone SE set to debut subsequent spring.
Simply because all of them carry the title A18 and the identical identifier household doesn’t imply the chips can be similar, nevertheless. It’s doable that Apple will disable GPU or CPU cores in lower-end fashions to extend yields and differentiate between them. There may be precedent for this within the iPhone 13 lineup.
The iPhone 13 (identifier: iPhone 14,5), iPhone 13 Professional (iPhone 14,2), and iPhone SE 2022 (iPhone 14,6) all use an A15 Bionic, however the Professional fashions have one further GPU core enabled and two further gigabytes of RAM (6 vs. 4). We’re more likely to see an analogous segmentation with this technology of iPhones.
This newest leak is according to earlier rumors that implies we’ll see “A18” throughout the board this yr, with some distinction between A18 and A18 Professional. The brand new chips are mandatory partially to run the Apple Intelligence fashions which require a robust Neural Engine and plenty of RAM—the iPhone 15 Professional and Professional Max are the one iPhones within the present lineup that can be suitable with the brand new Apple Intelligence options.
