No iPhone 14 mini in 2022, only iPhone 14 Pro models to get A16

Apple will be killing off the iPhone 14 mini model in 2022, while only iPhone 14 Pro models will get an updated A16 Bionic chip. The Pro models will also get LPDDR5, compared to LDDR4X for non-Pro iPhone 14 models.

Differences between iPhone 14 models

As per the latest tweets from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will be releasing iPhone 14 line-up this year in the following screen sizes:

iPhone 14 – 6.1-inches
iPhone 14 Max – 6.7-inches
iPhone 14 Pro – 6.1-inches
iPhone 14 Pro Max – 6.7-inches

Here is Ming-Chi Kuo’s tweet on the new change:

According to Apple’s rules for naming iPhones, the four new 2H22 iPhones could be called iPhone 14 (6.1″), iPhone 14 Max (6.7″), iPhone 14 Pro (6.1”), and iPhone 14 Pro Max (6.7″).

As per the above screen sizes, it seems that Apple will only maintain two screen sizes each for the regular and Pro iPhone models. As per previous rumors, Apple will also be introducing a pill+hole notch on iPhone 14 Pro models, which will be expanded to all iPhone 14 models in 2023.

Kuo also tweeted an important but surprising change for Apple’s flagship iPhone models. The company will be differentiating the chips that will be used in the Pro and non-Pro iPhones. Only the Pro models will get a new A16 Bionic chip, while the non-Pro models will stick with an A15 chip.

Only two Pro models would upgrade to the A16 processor, while the 14 & 14 Max will remain the A15. All four new models will likely come with 6GB RAM, with the difference being LPDDR 5 (14 Pro & 14 Pro Max) vs. LPDDR 4X (14 & 14 Max).

While there was a difference between the A15 chip used in iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro, with the latter shipping with a 5-core GPU, instead of a 4-core GPU, this would be the first time that Apple would use completely different chips in its flagship phones.

Apple will also be using different RAM types in its new smartphones. Regular iPhone 14 models will continue to use LPDDR4X models which are currently used in all iPhone 13 models, while iPhone 14 Pro models will use LPDDR5, which is more power-efficient thanks to Dynamic Voltage Scaling (DVS). LPDDR5 is also faster when it comes to performance as it features more channels per DIM.

It might be possible that Apple has made this decision due to the ongoing global chip shortage, however, we doubt that the company would make any official statement about it. It is also uncharacteristic of Apple to launch any new iPhone model with the same chip as last year, so we would not be surprised if this report from Kuo changes in the future.