According to a leaked leak to MacRumors, an iPhone identifier (presumably discovered on Apple’s backend, but no details are provided) suggests that all of this year’s iPhone 16 models will run the A18 chip.
iPhone identifiers typically take the form “iPhone xx,x”, where the number before the comma indicates the A-series processor, and the numbers after the comma indicate different models. For example, “iPhone 15,5” is the iPhone 15 Plus, “iPhone 15,4” is the regular iPhone 15, and “iPhone 16,1” is the iPhone 15 Pro. In the iPhone identifier, 14 indicates a phone with an A15, 15 indicates a phone with an A16, and 16 indicates a phone with an A17.
The identifiers found are:
- iPhone 17,1
- iPhone 17,2
- iPhone 17,3
- iPhone 17,4
- iPhone 17.5
That’s it five All iPhone models with the “17” identifier suggest they will use the A18 chip. There are five possible models coming out this year: the iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, 16 Pro Max, and some sort of high-end “iPhone Ultra” device. We think one of them is more likely to represent the iPhone SE, which is set to be released next spring.
However, just because they all have the same identifier family, such as A18, doesn’t mean the chips are the same. It’s possible Apple is disabling GPU or CPU cores in lower-end models to increase yield and differentiate them. There’s a precedent for this in the iPhone 13 lineup.
The iPhone 13 (identifier: iPhone 14,5), iPhone 13 Pro (iPhone 14,2), and iPhone SE 2022 (iPhone 14,6) all use the A15 Bionic, but the Pro model has an additional GPU core activated and 2GB more RAM (6 vs. 4). It’s likely we’ll see a similar breakdown in this generation of iPhones.
This latest leak is consistent with previous rumors that we could see an “A18” across the board this year, with some differences between the A18 and A18 Pro. The new chip is partly needed to run Apple Intelligence models that require a powerful Neural Engine and lots of RAM. The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max are currently the only iPhones in the lineup that are compatible with the new Apple Intelligence features.
