A19 chip could match Qualcomm's best, but Apple may lean toward power savings instead
The next iPhone chip, the A19, could be as fast as Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon 8 Elite 2 chipset, but Apple isn't pursuing that in favor of preserving battery life.
Processor wafers - Image Credit: TSMC
The chip inside a smartphone is a major component, as it is core to the performance of the mobile device. However, while the industry drives for the use of faster chips, Apple is doing so with an eye to battery consumption.
According to serial leaker "Fixed Focus Digital" in a June 21 Weibo post, it is believed that Apple's A19 chip could be as fast as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite 2. The Elite 2 is a yet-to-launch chipset that follows the Snapdragon 8 Elite, used in high-performance Android smartphones.
The leaker says that the A19 should be able to "catch up" with the Elite 2, due to having a higher level of Instructions Per Cycle (IPC) and better efficiency. However, they warn that the performance is not much higher than the Qualcomm competitor.
While Apple observers will be happy to hear the performance similarity, the actual result in consumer devices could be lower. The leaker adds that Apple still focuses on PPA (Power, Performance, Area) in its chip designs, and prefers to work with energy efficiency in mind.
Faster does not equal better
While Fixed Focus Digital has an iffy track record when it comes to rumors, and sometimes goes against the grain when it comes to the opinions of other leakers, there's a chance of being correct here.
The tech industry in general looks at chips from a viewpoint of performance metrics, with benchmark tools helping to declare one chip as better than the other. This is a very simple assessment of a chip's capabilities, and while handy, it ignores the other properties a chip can possess.
It's one thing to have the fastest chip in a smartphone, but it means nothing if it drains the battery faster and leaves an iPhone without power by the end of the day. That's before you take into account that such tests don't look into things like computational photography features, or many other AI-related features.
If the leak's claim about Apple's approach is genuine, Apple could well have a chip that does as well as its main rival this fall, but instead prioritizes other areas.
Other rumors and claims about Apple's iPhone 17 generation also lean into the power-saving philosophy. Specifically, the compact battery inside the iPhone 17 Air.
Rumors say that the iPhone 17 Air's lightweight body could result in a much smaller battery than usual. To combat this shortfall, leakers have claimed that Apple could be using a new advanced silicon battery, as well as raising the prospect of the return of the battery case.
Rumor Score: Possible
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Comments
For pro usage, yes, of course. Pushing the envelope, as usual. For development. Or for specialized worlds like gaming. But for every day use? iPhone 13 & up are still very potent.
Now, we have the A-series, and then, the M-series, M-Pro, M-Max, M-Ultra. Not counting Watch’s S, Vision’s R, and other « hidden » processors in the range. And cross-pollination between iPad with M-series as well as A-series.
At this point, it makes sense to repurpose the A-series closer to the S-series, and keep on improving the performance/watt instead of pure performance. That would also help devices such as the MacBook Air, that’s starting to get eerily hot on the later models. I wouldn’t mind a highly efficient A19 into a MBA, differentiating it from the performance-oriented M-based MBP.
This is sincerely the same than PCs, where IMHO the technology started getting into the asymptotic part of the diminishing returns curve 10 years ago. There are still reasons to improve computers outside of performance, or specialized parts. integrated GPUs are great examples. I am hoping for great improvement with Intel’s discrete GPUs, where it’ll eventually bring higher quality in the integrated GPU world. We’re already seeing this, where some workloads are executed faster on integrated GPUs than intermediate discrete GPUs. But if we look solely at CPUs, the gigahertz war is roughly over, the number of cores are tapered with efficiency in mind, not only performance. For a regular user, it’s typically not necessary to upgrade. Yes if you do 4K streaming with 2 inputs and interface compositing, as well as playing a game on the same computer, with audio and video processing and compression to Twitch and YT. But we’re getting in the crazy realm now, let’s agree on that! Most users won’t need that. There’s reasons why most people are still buying four core computers even today.
With multi-core and SIMD units (AI, NPU, even GPUs), the niches come into play. Less and less applications can actually take advantage of the compute, therefore less and less users.
As Secure Enclave is a separate system that has to handle most data in out like the old fashioned south bridge then why not make an R/C2 chiplet that handles the real time events for the system but move more functions to it to even out loads between different platforms.
The C1? Probably a separate chip, but possibly in the package, at a future date. It just depends on whether Apple wants to offer cell service on all Macs. Cell service is about $500 per year in revenue. Apple will want a cut of that, or they have their own cell service. If they already had their own cell service, I'd be much more confident that they'd include a cell modem into their SoCs. Currently, it's going to be a separate chip for a while.