‘Enhanced’ A15 Bionic Chip Will Be Present in the iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus Models

An ‘enhanced’ version of Apple’s A15 Bionic could be arriving for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, according to the latest report. As most of our readers know, the technology giant could be changing up its strategy, where it outfits the more premium iPhone models with a faster and more power-efficient silicon, which in this case, would be the A16 Bionic for the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.

No Performance Numbers Provided for This ‘Enhanced’ A15 Bionic, but It Could Like Feature More GPU Cores

A report published in The Wall Street Journal by Tim Higgins talks about this ‘enhanced’ A15 Bionic SoC. Previously, we stated that the same silicon would be found in the models mentioned above and would deliver slightly increased performance than the A15 Bionic running in the iPhone 13 models. Unfortunately, on this occasion, Higgins did not highlight any attributes of this chipset that would give its ‘enhanced’ capabilities.

To remind you, Apple introduced two versions of the A15 Bionic in 2021. One featured a 4-core GPU, and that was meant for the less premium iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini, while the 5-core GPU variant was reserved for the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. That single GPU core difference meant the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max obtained a 55 percent performance boost over the A14 Bionic GPU.

In comparison, the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini only achieved a modest 15 percent performance increase. Also, by default, the high-performance CPU cores of the A15 Bionic operated at 3.23GHz, but for some reason, those cores were downlocked to 2.99GHz when running in the iPad mini 6, so technically, there were three versions. Even if Apple were to use elongated marketing tactics and place the term ‘enhanced’ next to the A15 Bionic for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, it does not change the fact that the company is re-using an older silicon to save costs.

What this means is that this ‘enhanced’ version could simply be the 5-GPU core version found in the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max from last year. For 2023, Apple is rumored to follow the same strategy by using the A17 Bionic exclusively for the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, while retaining the A16 Bionic for the less pricey models. If you wish to learn what else Apple could announce during its September 7 ‘Far Out’ event, be sure to go through our detailed roundup.