iPhone 16 or rather the chip A18 expected power, could contain the best Neural Engine NPU made by the Apple to date, making the new iPhone the company’s best device for Apple Intelligence and other AI applications.
Tipster MappleGold (via Wccftech) posted on X that “The Neural Engine in the A18 (is) very powerful,” saying it’s better than the M4 chip featured in the 2024 iPad Pro.
The M4 sports the fastest NPU of any current Apple device according to the company’s measurements, and while you can only buy one in an iPad Pro right now, the chip is rumored to appear in Macs and MacBooks very soon.
The tipster doesn’t tell us the exact capabilities of the A18 chip, nor does it have a history of reliable leaks, but the idea that it will outperform Mac-class chips is something worth mentioning. It should mean that the recently announced Apple Intelligence features will work to their maximum extent on the new iPhones, but it remains to be seen which of the new models this updated NPU applies to.
Apple executives have argued that the strength of the Neural Engine is a key factor in whether a device is able to run Apple Intelligence. The only iPhones currently out there that can support it are the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. So what we are waiting to find out is whether the regular iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Plus will receive the updates.
Logic says that since MappleGold is referring to the A18 and not the A18 Pro, all iPhone 16s will get this supercharged NPU. This would go well with the rumored RAM capacity upgrade for the base and Plus models, as 8GB is apparently the minimum RAM capacity required to run Apple Intelligence.
In September, we hope that Apple Intelligence will be available to everyone who buys the latest iPhone, be it the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro Max.