Forget about the iPhone 16. New iPhone 18 details just leaked

By Bryan M. Wolfe Published September 19, 2024

The back of the iPhone 15 Pro Max. — Andy Boxall / Digital Trends

Apple has just announced the iPhone 16 series, handsets that will not even be released until tomorrow. However, we now have possible news about the iPhone 18 coming from Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with a good track record when it come to Apple rumors.

According to Kuo, some of the 2026 iPhone models will likely be equipped with a 2nm chip, which will make them even faster and more efficient than chips found in earlier models. The news isn’t all good. The lower-end iPhone 18 models are expected to feature 3nm processors again, and you will have to pay extra for the 2nm ones, which may only be available in the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.

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This isn’t surprising as Apple has been offering less powerful chipsets on the cheaper iPhone models in recent years. For example, this year, the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus have an A18 chip, while the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max have an A18 Pro.

The A18 and A18 Pro represent Apple’s system-on-chip (SoC) technology advances. While they share many similarities, the Pro version has some notable distinctions. Both chips are built on a second-generation 3nm process, offering the smallest transistors. The A18 and A18 Pro have a six-core CPU, an upgraded 16-core Neural Engine, and an improved memory subsystem.

The A18 Pro chip features a six-core GPU, whereas the A18 has a five-core GPU. The iPhone 16 Pro models also have wider memory bandwidth and larger caches than the A18. Third-party testers may soon discover other differences.

Kuo says the entire iPhone 17 series will feature 3nm chips next year. It’s probably safe to say they’ll be called the A19 and A19 Pro. What specific advancements the 2nm chips for the iPhone 18 series will have is hard to say right now, but we can safely bet that improved performance and better power efficiency will be among them. Seeing that Apple already made considerable upgrades on that front this year with the A18 chips for the iPhone 16 series, consider us excited.

Former Mobile and A/V Freelancer

Bryan M. Wolfe has over a decade of experience as a technology writer. He writes about mobile.

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