What do you want in the iPhone 16 when it launches this fall? We’ve already heard rumors of better cameras, improved battery life, more efficient thermal design and more. But a new report claims that the processors in the 16 series will ramp up AI computing cores, compared to current models.
The next iPhones could have significantly increased Neural Engine performance, a new report claims.
February 20 update below. This post was first published on February 17, 2024.
The report, from Taiwanese site Economic Daily News and spotted by Joe Rossignol’s eagle eyes at MacRumors, “will greatly increase” the number of AI cores.”
These extra cores will increase performance, which fits with the rumors that generative AI features are coming to the next series of iPhones. When I say rumors, I also mean that CEO Tim Cook has told me that Apple is working on generative AI, and told an earnings call that Apple would share details later this year—almost certainly in June at WWDC or the fall when the iPhones are released.
And since there have also been reports that some generative AI features would be exclusive to iPhone’s class of 2024, the extra cores predicted now would make sense.
It seems that there will be benefits for the Mac as well, with the report saying, “Apple’s product line will be greatly upgraded, and the new generation of M4 and A18 processors for terminal devices such as iPad, Macbook and iPhone will greatly increase the number of built-in AI computing cores.”
Apple’s machine learning smarts are part of what it calls the Neural Engine in its chips, which date back to the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X. Then, the Neural Engine had two cores. The next year this rose to eight cores, and has had 16 cores since the iPhone 12.
So, if Apple is going to “greatly increase” the number, what will it mean? Perhaps 24 or even 32. Apple is so skilled at efficiency, it could be that 20 cores could make a substantial difference.
That’s not quite the end of the story. Economic Daily News says that the existing processors will improve, even without the introduction of new cores, presumably by redirecting the software to use the Neural Engine differently. This kind of improvement has happened before, with performance increases claimed by Apple on the same number of cores.
The new report says, “This year, it will not only greatly strengthen the AI computing power of M3 and A17 processors, but also significantly increase the number of AI computing cores and performance of the new generation of M4 and A18 processors.”
With these changes, plus better OLED screens, a new microphone to improve Siri, an extra button, designed for shooting video and an improved main camera sensor, things are shaping up nicely for the iPhone 16 series.
February 19 update. According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter, Apple’s use of generative AI won’t have to wait until the upgraded neural engine expected for the iPhone 16 series, though it’s still connected to that phone and the iOS 18 update coming later this year.
One of the first ways the company will use generative AI is “to accelerate software development—both internally and externally,” Gurman says.
This will work thanks to Xcode, the environment for macOS used to develop software for Apple’s products such as the iPhone, iPad and beyond. For months, it’s claimed, Apple has been bringing large language models to Xcode. It seems there’s been a big step forward in how this is going and it is testing AI tools with its employees. “The idea is to test the approach to make sure it can be released to outside developers, as early as Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June,” Gurman explains.
These features would mean help for programmers to complete blocks of code and auto-generate programs which developers write to test applications to make sure they work properly.
“Next comes the more fun part: how Apple will adopt generative AI across iOS 18 in order to bring the technology to consumers.”
Since iOS 18 will be announced in June, we will here more then, though you can be sure that some features will be held back for the iPhone 16 neural engine to fully exploit.
February 20 update. The neural engine in powerfully upgraded chips are not the only change coming to the iPhone 16 series hardware. Another report gives credence to a design change which is directly related to the updated processor. The latest post on X from Majin Bu shows images which claim to be related to the iPhone 16. The report doubles down on a previous suggestion that two of the phones, iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, will have a striking design change that’s new and strangely familiar.
The camera bump on the rear was reported to be changing in rumors leaked earlier in February (full details here). And the result will be something much closer to the iPhone X, Xs and iPhone 11, where the dual cameras sat in a vertical, not diagonal arrangement.
Why does this matter? It’s believed that the rearrangement is to allow the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus to record spatial video, something the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max can do but the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus cannot.
Not least that’s because the main and ultra wide lenses on the Pro are in a vertical placing, and since filming spatial video requires both lenses to shoot at the same time, it seems obvious that continued diagonal arrangements just wouldn’t allow this, at least without the user holding the phone at a crazily unintuitive angle.
All of which means the upgrading of processor performance in the next iPhones is that bit closer to being confirmed—the regular iPhone may to at least match the power of the current Pro chip to take spatial video.
Of course, we’re still a long way from September and it’s worth nothing that of the two photos Majin Bu posted, they’ve already stepped away from the first one, though the second one seems the more interesting anyway.
The same post said there’s no news at this point about the camera bump on the iPhone 16 Pro, though I suspect it will look similar to the iPhone 15 Pro, though perhaps a little bigger to accommodate the expected arrival of the tetraprism telephoto camera which is currently limited to the iPhone 15 Pro Max.