Apple’s upcoming iPhone 14 models are expected to feature the same A15 Bionic chip as last year’s iPhone 13 models, according to multiple reports from reliable sources.
In March, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that only the iPhone 14 Pro models will feature the A16 chip, with the standard iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max models equipped with the A15 Bionic chip just like the iPhone 13. In an April edition of his newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman agreed that the standard iPhone 14 models “are likely to stick to last year’s A15 or a variant of it.” The rumor has since been echoed by other sources such as Taiwanese research firm TrendForce.
This differs from Apple’s strategy so far of equipping all the latest iPhones with the same chip. For example, iPhone 13 mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max all contain the A15 chip.
The standard iPhone 14 models could still perform slightly better than the iPhone 13, although they will contain the same A15 chip, according to the leak known as “ShrimpApplePro”. Despite retaining “some older hardware,” non-Pro iPhone 14 models will “still have an overall performance boost over the iPhone 13 series,” due to a new cellular modem and internal design, among other changes .
These other improvements could include more memory, as all iPhone 14 models are expected to have 6GB of memory, 2GB more than the iPhone 13. The new iPhone 14 modem is expected to be physically smaller, consume less energy and offer a high level of performance. As such, ShrimpApplePro’s claim that the iPhone 14 will still offer performance improvements seems plausible.
Both the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro contain the A15 Bionic chip. Although the two iPhones’ chips are physically the same, the iPhone 13 Pro’s GPU contains an additional active core to get slightly better performance from the iPhone 13 Pro when performing activities such as gaming or video editing. It seems likely that the iPhone 14 will get this slightly better version of the A15 to give it an edge over the standard iPhone 13.
Earlier this year, Gurman said that “beyond trying to highlight the Pro,” the ongoing chip shortage may have contributed to Apple’s decision to limit its upcoming chip to the iPhone 14 Pro models .