While the iPhone 14 Pro was a modest improvement on its predecessor, Apple looks like it’s pulling out all the stops this time around.
Back in September, I got my first iPhone since 2009. The iPhone 14 Pro I opted for replaced a much-loved but aged Samsung Galaxy S10e, and I’ve been extremely happy with my choice. And not just because the Samsung phone was a bright yellow eyesore (which goes some way to explaining its better-than-half-price status on Black Friday).
But if I could have made my old phone last one more year (an incident with a swimming pool put an end to that ambition), it looks like I’d have been even happier. That’s because the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Ultra handsets look like they could be a huge step forward – far bigger than the usual iterative annual updates that Apple puts out.
It’s too late for me, but if you’re on the fence about buying an iPhone 14 Pro today or waiting until September, I urge you to do the latter. Here’s why it looks like it’ll pay to wait.A much faster chip
Yes, getting a faster chipset on a new phone isn’t exactly uncommon, but the difference between the A16 that powers the iPhone 14 Pro series and the A17 that’s set to power the iPhone 15 Pro and UItra really could be night and day.
There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that the A16 chipset was basically just a souped-up A15. Apple reportedly had something far more ambitious in the works (opens in new tab), but couldn’t make it work without excessive heat and battery drain, so reined in its ambition at the last minute. Instead, it opted for something that’s only a modest improvement on the previous generation.
That means we could be getting nearly two generations worth of improvements in 2023, especially as the A17 Bionic is set to be Apple’s first 3nm chipset.
While you should take any purported benchmarks this early with a colossal pinch of salt, one such leak suggests the iPhone 15 Pro could have benchmark numbers not too far removed from Apple’s M1 MacBooks.
