Information circulating the internet suggests that a new power management chip in next year's iPhones will help control charging, provide better battery management, along with more efficient energy consumption
A Nikkei report says, “Apple is designing its own main power management chips for use in iPhones as early as in 2018. The main power management chip controls an iPhone's charging function, battery management, and energy consumption. Based on Apple's current plan, they are set to replace partially, or around half of its power management chips to go into iPhones by itself starting next year."
What this means is that Apple is working on a power management chip that will help with much better optimisation of battery life on iPhones. As mentioned above, if these new chips are implemented in iPhones, then we will see better charging, better battery management and efficient energy consumption on future iPhones. It goes without saying that Apple will also optimise iOS to help with better battery management.
The Nikkei report goes on to say, “Another person said Apple was indeed developing its own power management chips for iPhones but the time frame was less certain and could be delayed to 2019.” So it is possible that the new chip may not make its way to the 2018 iPhone, but the iPhone we see launch in 2019.
The iPhone 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X run on the A11 Bionic chip which is Apple's first hexa-core chip. With this new chip Apple has improved the battery life of the iPhone. However, with the iOS 11 update older iPhones like the iPhone 7 have seen a drop in battery life. We have a 9.7-inch iPad Pro in office and after the iOS 11 update, that too has seen a dip in battery life.
Power management is vital to the success of a smartphone. Apple's main power management chips for its products like the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch are exclusively designed and made by Dialog. Information circulating the internet suggests that Apple accounted for 74% of Dialog's revenue in 2016.
With the A11 Bionic, Apple abandoned PowerVR GPUs in favour of their own GPU and the results are very evident. We tested the A11 Bionic and it is a GPU beast on the iPhone X. So it's no surprise that Apple wants to move away from third party and make as many components as possible themselves for the iPhone.
Apple is currently engaged in a legal battle with Qualcomm in the US. You can read the details of the Apple Vs Qualcomm legal battle here.
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