The countdown to the presentation of the new generation iPhone can be done in literally tens of hours, but this does not prevent interesting information about Apple’s new products from appearing with enviable persistence. The Financial Times reported that the A18 processor used in the iPhone 16 family will use the Armv9 architecture, which is responsible for implementing generative artificial intelligence functions.
Image Source: Apple
For British developer Arm, the arrival of another Apple processor with a new architecture will mean a noticeable increase in revenue, since the v9 architecture implies twice the royalties compared to the v8 architecture. Apple is a major Arm customer, they have a long-term licensing agreement, and the iPhone makes up about half of the American giant’s revenue.
The v9 architecture introduced by Arm in 2021 is already used by Apple M4 family processors, which can be found in computers and tablets of this brand. In promoting the iPhone 16 family of smartphones, the company will focus on a set of Apple Intelligence functions related to generative artificial intelligence. In the line of existing Apple smartphones, only the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, equipped with the most powerful A17 Pro processor using the Armv8 architecture, received support for these functions. In the software area, support for Apple Intelligence will be provided by the beta version of the iOS 18.1 operating system, which is just getting ready for release.