Apple doesn’t make too many mistakes when it comes to smartphones. But when it misfires, it’s bullshit.
I’ve been arguing for a while now that Apple got it wrong when it decided to use different types of chipsets in the phones it released – the iPhone Pro models get the shiny new silicon, while the standard iPhone turns to chipsets that are older. The downsides of this strategy have become abundantly clear over the past two years, and are only now being highlighted with the announcement that the new Apple Intelligence features only work on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max among the current models.
Once again, Apple’s reliance on different generations of chipsets within the same iPhone generation is the gift that keeps on giving.
How we got here
As you’ll recall, Apple takes an egalitarian approach to system-on-chips — all phones released together will run on the same silicon. Heck, when the iPhone SE (2022) came out, it featured the same A15 Bionic chip that was in the iPhone 13 models that came out in the fall.
Half a year after the launch of the iPhone SE, however, Apple was singing a different tune. This fall’s iPhone 14 models used its own A15 Bionic, even if it had an extra GPU core. Meanwhile, the iPhone 14 Pro models benefit from the faster A16 Bionic chip, which would then go into the iPhone 15 last fall. iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max upgraded to A17 Pro, the only iPhone SoC that can support the aforementioned Apple Intelligence features.
I’ve shared this before, but using last year’s chipset in this year’s flagship phone presents the device maker with a serious marketing problem. As good as your new phone is, you’ve immediately branded it a gift, a second choice you’re reduced to buying if you can’t swing the price of the Pro model and its better chipset. Sure, Apple has managed to better differentiate its Pro models over the past two years, but at the expense of that, it’s made the regular iPhone feel like a best-ignored warm-up act to the iPhone Pro headliner.
Another issue arose when we started comparing the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 over the past few years. The performance of top Android phones powered by Qualcomm’s newer silicon began to match and eventually outperform those iPhones in some tests.
| Samsung Galaxy S24 | iPhone 15 | |
| Processor | Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 | A16 Bionic |
| Geekbench (single core/multi core) | 2235 / 6922 | 2518 / 6179 |
| Wild Life Unlimited (fps) | 120.4 | 72.1 |
| Adobe Premiere Rush (Minutes:Seconds) | 0:41 | 0:24.9 |
Let’s stick to the Galaxy S24 vs iPhone 15 comparison, as this covers the two latest flagships from both companies. The Galaxy S24, powered by the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset found in Samsung’s lineup, beats the iPhone 15 and its A16 Bionic chip in Geekbench’s multi-core test and 3DMark’s Wild Life Unlimited test for graphics performance. All the iPhone 15 has is faster video transcoding times and better single-core Geekbench numbers.
Does Apple Intelligence come to the rescue?
And now comes Apple’s revelation that the iPhone 15 you paid $799 for last fall can’t support some software features that come out just a few months later. I’m not an iPhone 15 owner, but if I were, I’d feel a little heavy handed about Apple Intelligence. I’d certainly be less enthusiastic about the Apple Intelligence features arriving later this year, as they miss my phone entirely.
Someone with a more nuanced view of this might point out that the limit on which iPhones can run Apple Intelligence won’t always be that strict. Fall should bring new iPhone 16 models and the fact that all four phones are rumored to get some variation of the A18 Pro, which is currently in development. This should mean Apple Intelligence support for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, not just the iPhone 16 Pro. So if you’re planning to upgrade in the fall, you have reason to be excited about Apple Intelligence and the looming preview.
Or so the theory goes. I spoke with analysts about the outlook for the iPhone 16 upgrade, and it sounds like it’s anyone’s guess what impact Apple Intelligence will have on iPhone sales this fall. Tuong Nguyen, principal analyst at Gartner, is generally optimistic about Apple Intelligence’s prospects, but told me he doesn’t see it as a major driver of iPhone upgrades. “While the Apple Intelligence features announced were significant, the improvements introduced aren’t really why people buy new phones or change ecosystems,” he said.
I have even stronger evidence closer to home. My wife is almost ready for a new iPhone, and rather than wait for the fall, she’ll probably upgrade sooner rather than later. It doesn’t matter to her what AI-based features might come to her phone in the fall, as much as finding the best iPhone deal now matters.
Perhaps people are still struggling to be as enthusiastic about AI as tech companies seem to be. But I suspect there would be a bit more interest in Apple Intelligence if the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus were also in line to be among the first wave of phones to get these AI features with the iOS 18 update this fall.
If, as expected, this fall’s iPhone 16 release includes the same A18 chips in every model, it will be the definitive confirmation that this is what Apple has been doing with its phones and chipsets for the past two release cycles. But for me, the lack of wider support for Apple Intelligence is what really drives the idea.
