If there’s one constant when it comes to iPhone upgrades, it’s better battery life. Over the past few years, Apple has made battery life a priority, from the massive jump with the iPhone 13 to the long-lasting iPhone 14 Plus. But as the rumors keep pouring in, there’s reason to think the iPhone 15 could bring another boost to battery life. Here’s what the latest rumors say:
A17 3nm chip
After the somewhat disappointing A16 chip, Apple is expected to launch the first chip using a 3nm process with the A17 in the iPhone 15 Pro. Generally, chips with newer process technology are more efficient, and TSMC’s estimates for the 3nm chip are that efficiency will increase by about 35% over its 5nm chips (like the A16 ). We don’t know exactly what this will mean for battery life on the iPhone 15 Pro models, but we’re expecting great things.
The A17 processor will be Apple’s first chip made using a 3nm process.
Foundry
Updated display chip and LiDAR scanner
Speaking of chips, the Economic Daily News reported this week that Apple will switch to a new 28nm OLED display driver chip from the current 40nm chip. Like the A17 chip, a smaller OLED driver chip will be more efficient and “will further reduce the power consumption of the OLED driver chip and improve the performance of iPhone 15 series models,” according to the report. Since the screen is the main consumer of the battery, even a slight improvement in efficiency could yield big gains.
Friday, Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple will use Sony as a supplier for its time-of-flight Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting (LiDAR) laser for the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. As he explains, Sony’s ToF VCSEL incorporates key components to reduce power consumption, which is beneficial for battery life.
faster memory
The iPhone 15 Pro is expected to feature 8GB of RAM for the first time, which will make multitasking much faster by keeping more apps stored for longer. This doesn’t necessarily have a positive effect on battery life, but the type of RAM might. The latest rumors suggest that Apple will increase specs as well as gigabytes, so the iPhone 15 would get LPDDR5 and the iPhone 15 Pro might make the jump to LPDDR5X memory, both of which are more efficient.
iOS17
Finally, there’s iOS 17 itself, which could be the biggest reason for the iPhone 15’s improved battery life. focus on performance and efficiency. And when iOS works better, your phone lasts longer.
Bigger batteries
OK, this one is obvious. A bigger battery usually means better battery life, and after the Phone 14 line actually has smaller batteries, we’re hoping Apple tops the specs of the iPhone 15 line, especially the rumored iPhone 15 Ultra. With the Apple Watch Ultra, Apple brought a much larger battery over the Series 8 (542mAh vs. 308mAh) and doubled battery life (36 hours vs. 18 hours), and we’d like to see a nice bump with the iPhone 15 Ultra too.
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