Has Apple Hit a Wall with The A15 Processor?

Perhaps we could exchange the speed for battery life?

Apple’s annual product revenues are dominated by the iPhone, so Tuesday’s announcement about the four new iPhone models was a major Apple event. Apple’s next-generation processor, the A15 Bionic was announced.

Apple-designed processors power almost everything Apple makes, from Macs to iPads and iPhones. The A15 marks the beginning of a new platform for Apple’s 2023 devices. The A15 core design will likely be used in future Macs and iPad Pro models, just as the A14 processor was last year.

In many ways, the A15 is very similar to the A14. The A15 and A14 both have a six-core processor design. There are four high-efficiency cores as well as two high-performance cores. The energy-sipping cores are the most efficient, but when the device requires speed, the fast cores turn on and give it its peak performance. The 16-core Neural Engine is also available on both chips. It’s optimized for machine learning tasks such as scanning faces and objects in photos.

The only difference between A14 and A15 lies in graphics processing. While the A15 processor in iPhone 13 has four GPU cores like the A14 processor, the A15 processor in iPhone 13 Pro has five CPU cores.

The New A15 Bionic Is Very Similar to The A14 That It Replaces.

Apple has in the past varied the number and types of GPU cores within a chip line. This was most notable in the M1 processor. It used a technique called binning to disable these GPU cores and still use them for products. There is only one M1 processor.

It is interesting to see Apple add GPU binning to their iPhone line. This will create a slight distinction between the iPhone 13 Pro and the iPhone 13 Pro. The iPhone 13 will not have a fifth GPU core, so it will only run at 80 percent of the iPhone 13 Pro’s graphics capabilities. However, the Pro model may need more graphics power to handle the ProMotion display’s 120Hz refresh rate.

How Do You Measure Progress?

The funny thing about Tuesday’s A15 Bionic announcement is that Apple did not compare it to the A14. Apple has always compared its iPhones’ power to older models in the past. Apple claims that the iPhone 13 Pro’s A15 has 50% better graphics and CPU performance than the competition.

Apple’s smartphone competitors have been generally faster in terms of processor power than Apple, so the A15 likely has less advantage over the A14 than the Qualcomm processors found in the top Android phones. It makes me wonder if Apple might be trying to soft-pedal the new chip, which isn’t as fast as the older model.

Apple, on the other hand, was happy to draw direct comparisons with the iPhone 12 in terms of longevity. The iPhone 13 models offer 1.5 to 2.5 hours more battery life. This is a significant improvement. It could be that Apple decided to reduce the A15’s power and make it more efficient.

We won’t know the outcome of the A15 chip until we test it in the new iPhones. However, I must admit that I don’t expect a significant speed increase.

The new iPad mini features an A15, just like the iPhone 13. The iPad mini-website compares the iPad mini to the A12 from the previous model.

You can calculate the numbers. On the iPad mini-site, Apple claims that the A15-powered iPad mini provides 40% more efficient than its predecessor, the A12 iPad mini. According to the Geekbench Browser provides an average score of 1104 (single-core) or 2685 (multi-core) for the previous iPad mini. If Apple’s claims correspond to Geekbench results (and they might not, as it’s not clear) the new iPad mini will receive scores that are somewhere between 1560 and 3760. The issue with this is the fact that A14 scores between 1583 and 4198 which is more than the extrapolated scores for A15.

Are you sure that the A15 processor is any slower than its predecessor? This seems unlikely. However, Apple chose to compare its Android competitors with itself makes it seem less likely.

Each successive generation of chips has delivered a 20 percent increase in single-core performance over the last few years. This year may be different. Although the A-series processor’s introduction is always significant, it’s not clear how important the A15 processor will be.