Apple is reportedly set to offer the same A18 chipset across all four iPhone 16 models. MacRumors cites tipster Nicolas Alvarez (@nicolas09F9 on X). While digging through code in Apple’s backend, he spotted references to five devices featuring a common identifier.
The devices and identifiers in question are:
- iPhone 17,1
- iPhone 17,2
- iPhone 17,3
- iPhone 17,4
- iPhone 17,5
Apple is known to use the identifier iPhone “X” to represent the processor used for that device. For example, the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus have identifiers iPhone 15,4 and iPhone 15,5, respectively. The iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max’s identifiers are iPhone 16,1 and iPhone 16,2.
It can be noticed that the non-Pro and Pro iPhone 15 models have different identifiers. This is because Apple used the A16 Bionic processor on the non-Pro models and the A17 Pro processor on the Pro models.
Since newly spotted iPhone models have the same “iPhone 17” identifier, it has led to speculations that Apple will use the same processor for all these models. Four of these models are likely part of the next-gen iPhone 16 family. The last one could be a new iPhone SE or another device—though the latter is unlikely.
One important thing to note is that even though the A18 chip will likely be used on all models, Apple could still differentiate between non-Pro and Pro devices by offering two versions of the same chipset. There could be A18 and A18 Pro chipsets where the former has restricted GPU performance or some other limitation.
Apple Intelligence Support Relies on the Processor Prowess
Apple started offering different sets of processors for non-Pro and Pro iPhone models, starting with the iPhone 14 series. This was done to differentiate between the two groups of devices. It further helped the company entice customers to spend more money on the Pro variants to get more powerful features.
The difference in the processor is also why the upcoming Apple Intelligence support is limited to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. Apple said these AI features require more computing power to be accomplished smoothly.
It seems like Apple wants to avoid this situation in the future by using the same processor across all iPhone 16 models.
