“According to 9to5Mac‘s Mark Gurman, Apple’s upcoming 4-inch smartphone will use the company’s latest A9 processor rather than the older generation A8 processor as had been previously speculated,” Ashram Eassa writes for The Motley Fool. “If this is true, then this is certainly good for Apple customers, as the A9 processor is extremely capable and should provide excellent performance for years to come.”
“However, there may be other reasons that Apple will use this chip rather than the A8/M8 combination,” Eassa writes. “According to Apple, the integration of the M9 co-processor (essentially a sensor hub) into the same die as the A9 chip allows for the always-on ‘Hey, Siri’ functionality that was introduced with the iPhone 6s/6s Plus.”
Additionally, Eassa writes, “The integration of the M9 co-processor into the A-series chip should actually yield some cost savings.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Let’s hope Apple’s 4-inch iPhone is indeed as up-to-date as possible.
If the new chip isn’t bigger consuming more energy, then there is no reason to use the old chip. Apple doesn’t pay a higher royalty for the new chip because the chip is their design.
This 5se is becoming more and more attractive to me. Hopefully it will sports has many features as his big brothers.
I’ve been testing the 6 quite often in Apple Store only to find myself not convince about the size and the definite loss of the one hand operation. Still I wish it would’ve been reintroduce/reunited in the 7 series…
I did end up upgrading to the 6 when it was released and I can say, that I do miss the smaller device. I’m hoping this rumored device will be a 6s mini.
If it is actually going to be a “5se,” it will be to replace the current 5s with a couple of “modernized” components, most specifically NFC to help boost Apple Pay adoption.
Or a 6s+–?
All I want for New iPhone Day is a better battery.
Absolutely would be silly for Apple to kneecap the 5se. They have a true 64-bit ecosystem; making sure every possible device can seamlessly exploit that eco-system only highlights the superiority of iOS.
You do NOT want someone with their brand-spankin’ new 5se wondering why their phone can’t do some cool thing the iPHone 6 (or 7) can do.
The 5S A7 is a 64-bit chip. Obviously since they’d use at least an A8 in the 5se there would be no “kneecap” involved, other than what Apple has been doing by adding a better camera to the 6+/6s+ models over the standard 6/6s, or 3D touch to the latest models. No way the new 5se is going to have all the features of even the 6s. My guess is that it’ll lack 3D touch and of course the better camera of the 6s+.
I’ll keep saying this in case anyone reading this could make it happen, but if free dynamic activation switching becomes a thing, I will buy the smallest iPhone and largest iPhone every year and switch between the two as needed.