One of the rather transparent ways that Apple has attempted to increase average revenue per iPhone unit sold in recent years has been to unnecessarily differentiate features between the “vanilla” (read: cheaper) iPhones and the more expensive Pros. . It’s gotten to the point where vanilla models are now powered by different, older chipsets to save Apple some money and protect their profit margin.
That, however, could change next year. According to a research note from Jeff Pu, an analyst who covers Apple and its supply chain and has a decent track record, sent to Haitong International Securities in Hong Kong, all four iPhone 16 models will be powered by A18 chips.
That’s a far cry from this year’s lineup, where the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus get the A16 Bionic, while the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are both powered by the A17 Pro chip.
Now, you might think that Apple will finally stop making chipset capabilities a major plus for its Pro line, but you’d be wrong. You see, even though all four models will use an A18 chip in 2024, it apparently won’t be the same, as the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus are said to ship with the A18, while the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max it will have the A18 Pro, which strongly implies more oomph built into it.
So, in the end, Apple may simply rename its chipsets so that it appears that vanilla iPhones are closer in hardware specs to their Pro relatives. It’s unclear how different the A18 will be from the A17 Pro used in this year’s Pro iPhones. year, we’ll have to wait and see.
However, the A18 and A18 Pro will be produced by TSMC on its second-generation 3nm “N3E” process, which will be less expensive and produce better yields than the “N3B” used for the A17 Pro , according to TSMC.
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