The iPhone 16 lineup is expected to launch in September. Aside from the usual display, camera, and other hardware upgrades, generative AI features are likely to be part of the announcements, with Apple’s intelligence playing a key role in all of this. In short, demand for the upcoming models is expected to be high, which is why Apple is reportedly mass producing up to 100 million A18 chips, which will power the four phones.
The A18 and A18 Pro will debut later this year, and Apple will likely introduce some spec differences to help push iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max stock.
Although prominent analysts like Ming-Chi Kuo expected the iPhone 16 family to lack compelling features, leading to lower shipments, the China Times reported that Apple’s estimated sales for this year’s latest lineup range between 90 million to 100 million units. This effectively means that the tech giant’s partner, TSMC, will supply up to 100 million A18 units to the company, but before you forget, we should remind readers that the company has two chipsets to be unveiled later this year. The A18 is expected to be found in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus.
As for the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, Apple’s high-end models will likely get the A18 Pro processor, which may provide slightly better performance than the basic version. Like the M4 that powers the latest 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro OLED models, Apple can leverage TSMC’s 3nm “N3E” process to achieve better power efficiency and performance for the tablet than the “N3B” node. A previous rumor claimed that the A18 would feature a more powerful neural engine than the M4 unit, leading to improved generative AI capabilities.
Perhaps the only aspect holding the iPhone 16 series back is the lack of RAM, as all four models will reportedly have 8GB, which is an insufficient amount when the generative AI features are fully running on the device. The A18 and A18 Pro could also feature larger chip sizes to accommodate an upgraded neural engine and increased cache, but the hexa-core GPU configuration may remain unchanged from the A17 Pro, which could limit graphical performance.
The report did not mention which iPhone 16 model has been ordered in larger quantities, but we expect to see the breakdown in the coming months while we also analyze what the A18 series is capable of, so stay tuned for more updates.
News source: China Times newspaper
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