They did the same thing for the A14 last year though. Probably a new marketing strategy. And I remember people having exactly the same kind of discussion. We all know what happened next
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User predictions for Apple Prosumer Silicon (M1X, M2 etc.)
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They did the same thing for the A14 last year though. Probably a new marketing strategy. And I remember people having exactly the same kind of discussion. We all know what happened next
6% would be such a sad improvement. I need a phone badly and want a mini so was really hoping to upgrade this year, but the 13 mini is hardly any different than the 12 mini, to the point where I might just find a 12 mini on sale for like $150 less.
Why, what are you doing that's even remotely challenging the A14? At this point more power for the sake of more power is a waste. They're putting more effort into improving stuff as and when it's needed for a specific feature. Particularly graphics for VR and the neural engine for machine learning applications.
It's also worth noting the A chips have been on quite a linear trajectory recently, so they're not slowing down but the %age increases get smaller each time as you're starting from a larger base:
I look forward to seeing an update to this graph, I expect the A15 to reach the 70 mark, probably 71 to 72.
Easier choice for me as I'm upgrading from a 7+. Better battery life is a draw for me as well. I really like the early looks of the 14 but the plan is to get the 13 mini and use it for five years before upgrading.
Why, what are you doing that's even remotely challenging the A14? At this point more power for the sake of more power is a waste. They're putting more effort into improving stuff as and when it's needed for a specific feature. Particularly graphics for VR and the neural engine for machine learning applications.
It's also worth noting the A chips have been on quite a linear trajectory recently, so they're not slowing down but the %age increases get smaller each time as you're starting from a larger base:
I look forward to seeing an update to this graph, I expect the A15 to reach the 70 mark, probably 71 to 72.
I have the 7+ and I don't even recall which CPU it has but it is adequate for me. That is it isn't slow but it isn't fast either. But I don't find myself waiting for things to happen that aren't network-related. I tested the iPhone 12 in The Apple Store and the speed was just ridiculous.
Benefits for me are better WiFi, hopefully better voice and better battery life. The rest of the new features don't matter to me, at least not at this time.
You're probably right overall and that the extra battery life and other features are more practical. I guess it just still feels like a bummer to get a model with low performance jump after years of ~ 20% increase.
I'm currently using an iPhone 8 w/ the A13 chip and it's mostly good but at times can be a bit laggy.
I'm coming from an 8+, the A11 is almost half as powerful as the A14 (see above), but if things aren't instantaneous they're not far off. As you say the bottleneck is usually network related (Maps, Safari) or system animation based (weather, photos etc). I'm sure the 13 will feel somehow 'snappier', but I don't think it's going to make any particular difference to usage. Now, maybe if I was into mobile gaming and loading up a really heavy title like the ones demoed at the event I'd appreciate it more?
Yep I think the other features are what makes the 13 interesting. Though it seems a bit of a sparse update, the cameras are quite a big improvement by the looks of things, if you're into photography, the extra battery life will be welcome (particularly if you're looking at a mini), the storage tiers are nicer with 128GB rather than 64GB to start. The brighter screen will also make reading the screen in bright conditions that much easier. We will have to wait and see with the RAM, but if it's up from 4 to 6GB that should also help make things feel quicker as apps won't get thrown out of memory as often when you leave them so there will be less reloading.
All true. Would have loved to see a high accuracy gps (dual frequency) but oh well.
There are some watches with this and I would like this feature in my next watch even though there's a bit more battery drain.
For me it's not about really needing exact accuracy to the inch, but useful for a few things:
1. Better multipath handling in cities with tall buildings where the signal is all over the place
2. For backpacking, useful when trails run very close together and are parallel.
The iPhone 12's A14 chip uses LPDDR4 (https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/iPhone+12+and+12+Pro+Teardown/137669). I'd expect the iPhone 13's A15 chip would use LPDDR5, but Apple's not said.
What I'm really curious about is whether Apple will use LPDDR5 in the upcoming MBP's.
What I'm really curious about is whether Apple will use LPDDR5 in the upcoming MBP's.
I’m not concerned really. They tout better battery life, which speaks to me that they said “we already crush our competition, why not improve elsewhere?”
If we’re talking performance uplift for the mac, then theoretically they could just use faster memory and clock the m1 higher to gain performance for little effort.
It can be a concern in the long term if it becomes a pattern and we see that Apple is hitting a wall.
In the short term, I’m honestly chomping at the bit for a 16” MBP that doesn’t nuke the battery in voice calls, and has at least the same performance to the i7 I’ve been using for the tasks I care about (Xcode, Photo Editing, light CAD). I’m not in a position where I want/need major uplift, I want efficiency without losing performance to do it.
I’m also willing to give Apple some slack on navigating the transition as they are effectively taking on a fair bit of new work to tackle the issues faced bringing their take on higher end SoCs for laptops/desktops. Being in a large company, I’m used to the mentality of shifting people around to bootstrap projects rather than hiring their way out of what seems to be a short term shortage of engineers. The truth is we don’t know how Apple is prioritizing work at the moment for their silicon team (sadly).
Well, they actually did shout it from the rooftops; but, consistent with what others have said (that it appears they used the improved performance of the new chip more to reduce energy consumption rather than increase speed), the comparative performance improvement they shouted about was battery life:
True, but with more power hungry displays but also bigger batteries it is hard to know how everything is distributed. And this isn’t explicitly calling out the processor as being x% much more efficient than its predecessor. We’ll find out soon enough obviously.
Note/clarification for other readers, in case there's any confusion: I wasn't myself "explicitly calling out the processor as being x% much more efficient than its predecessor". Rather, I was careful in only saying the fact that they made comparative claims about improved battery life rather than improved speed would be *consistent with* the notion that they have tilted processor improvements towards higher efficiency rather than higher speed.
This is, as we know, all in the realm of specuation at this point.
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Absolutely I understood and I agree it is consistent. However the other user is concerned that Apple isn’t shouting about the processor improvements and your post doesn’t really alleviate that concern.
More to the point they didn’t shout about the A14 either. Also if Apple has say a 6-7% performance increase and say a 6-8% efficiency increase then individually neither number is shoutout worthy but together that’s an entirely respectable increase in performance per watt yoy. So we’ll just have to see!
Ah, I see. You're saying the "huge leap in battery life" could in part be due to a significant increase in battery size and/or battery energy density, and/or significant improvements in display efficiency. Yes, agreed. But how likely are those?
The volumes of the iPhone 12 and 13 are nearly identical, so the battery sizes should be about the same, though Tom's Guide claims bigger batteries for the 13 (https://www.tomsguide.com/face-off/iphone-13-vs-iphone-12-biggest-differences-to-expect) (not sure how reliable Tom's Guide is). Beyond that leaves battery energy density and display efficiency.
Edit: I checked the numbers: The volume difference between the iPhone 13 and 12 is 2.6 cm^3, so that could accommodate a larger battery. [Don't know how much of that volume difference would be used for battery vs. other changes.]
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The batteries are supposed to bigger (and heavier) in the new phones. The phones are slightly thicker and Apple have said they have a new internal layout that allowed for bigger batteries. The new phones are definitely heavier. But it’s just not known yet how much bigger these new batteries are. Also I would suspect the new displays, especially for the pros with the HRR displays, are probably drawing *more* power than the 12 displays (maybe not for the non-pro phones, though I believe they also have brighter displays). So we’ll just have to wait for tests to determine how much of the new battery life is from bigger batteries and how much is the new processor. I doubt little of it display which might even be a drag on battery life depending on the phone.
I see it a bit differently. The thing is, starting from around A11 there was indeed reason to worry that Apple is hitting a wall. Their CPUs were much faster than the competition, true, but they also run hotter (5Watt vs. 3.5-4.5Watts on Android CPUs usually). And there was evidence to believe that Apple was already clocking them as fast as possible.
Now, if A15 is as fast or slightly faster than A14 but consumes less power (which we don’t know yet pending benchmarks!), then Apple might have solved this particular problem. In another words, if A15 cores can consume less power to deliver the same performance, it is much more likely that have a higher performance ceiling. And that’s exactly what Apple needs if they want to compete with future x86 CPUs.
Yeah I didn’t watch last years keynote because I knew I wasn’t getting a new phone. This year I paid attention. I am really curious to see anandtech rundown of the new CPU when it comes out.
That can be achieved by just moving to a improved nodes. A15 is supposedly fabricated on N5P, so either 5% performance gain, or 10% power savings can be achieved over N5 process used on A14 even if there were no changes in the core itself.
