Apple may use the A16 Bionic chip in iPhone 14 Pro devices only

After announcing the iPhone SE 2022 just a few days ago, along with the new iPad Air, a new Apple chip for the Macs, and the Mac Studio, Apple is now gearing up for the September event which will see the launch of the new iPhone 14 series. Of course, the conversations regarding the iPhone 14 series and what may, or may not, come with it has been going on for a while now and we more or less have an idea about what to expect.

Besides a slight design change that is going to affect the face of the device, a new report suggests that Apple might use the new A16 Bionic chip only for its Pro models and launch the iPhone 14 and the iPhone 14 mini with the same A15 chip that is powering the current iPhone 13 series and the new iPhone SE 2022. If this does happen, it will widen the gap between the base models and the Pro variants even further. So far, Apple has been sticking to using the same chip across the range and the Pro variants were given a boost in the screen size, camera, battery, and subtly, on the design end.

According to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the 6.1-inch iPhone 14 Pro and the 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Pro Max are going to be the two devices that will get the A16 chip, while the 6.1-inch iPhone 14 and the 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Max will get the A15. Kuo also believes that all the iPhone 14 models are going to have 6GB of memory with the Pro devices getting LPDDR5 and the non-Pro devices getting the LPDDR 4X.

Going by these these reports, Apple is also expected to drop the mini variant this time with the iPhone 14 series. Which is understandable given the fact that the company might want to focus on the iPhone SE series instead. However, the mini variant does have its fans so it remains to be seen how things work out by September.

On the design front, the iPhone 14 Pro devices are expected to feature a hole-punch and pill-shaped cutouts on the top of the display. The hole should house the Face ID dot projector while the pill-shaped cutout is for the font camera and the Face Id infrared camera.

Apple is also expected to improve the cameras on the iPhone 14 Pro devices. Reports suggest that the current 12MP ones might be replaced with 48MP ones. The company has also, reportedly, asked mobile carriers in the US to “prepare for the launch of eSIM-only smartphones by September this year”, that indicates that Apple might remove the physical SIM card slot on some of the smartphones starting with the iPhone 14 series itself instead of the iPhone 15 series as some rumours had suggested.

Additionally, industry display specialist Ross Young, CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants (DSCC), wrote in a blog post that “within 18 months every iPhone will look very different”. Young writes that Apple’s plans to replace the notch in iPhone 14 Pro models with the punch-hole and pill-shaped cutouts and this is going to be expanded to every iPhone model in 2023.

According to an anonymous tipster, Apple is not going to slim down the bezels on the standard models and they are also going to retain the notch on these devices as well.

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