Apple recently announced theiPhone 16ea model that becomes part of the iPhone family of the company led by TIM Cook And which stands out for a series of technological innovations designed to guarantee high performance at a more affordable price than the top of the lineup models. The main novelty of this device is the 5G Modem Owner C1the first developed internally by the Cupertino company, which will allow to convert the 5G signal to the signal Wi-Fi to connect multiple devices to the Internet. This modem represents an important step towards Apple’s independence from external suppliers such as Qualcomm, with the aim of obtaining greater energy efficiency, higher performance and reduced production costs. The modem C1 in fact promises a stable and fast 5G connectivity, while mitigating consumption.
To complete the package there is the Chip A18which feeds the iPhone 16e in a “weakened” version compared to that used in the most expensive models of the same family, as its GPU (the so -called graphic processing unit) has one core less. The general performance of the device should be more than good, even if more complex activities from a graphic point of view could be affected, at least in the most intense sessions.
Because Apple has made a 5G owner modem
Let’s start with the biggest novelty: the new modem c1. This component marks Apple’s debut in the field of mobile modems. Until today, the company had relied on Qualcomm For 5G modem, but with the new C1 chip, Apple aims at greater integration between hardware and software and more efficient management of the device resources. The main novelty is the energy efficiency that C1 brings with it. Thanks to an advanced design and a low consumption architecture, Apple (according to what was declared in an official press release) has managed to improve the battery autonomy of the iPhone 16e, while maintaining the connectivity performance high. Although the C1 is present only on this model, it is a move that could mark the beginning of a change in the modem marketgiving Apple greater control over the quality and performance of mobile connectivity.
If you think about it, it is a “film” that we have already seen in 2020 with Apple Silicon: gradually, Apple stopped using Soc produced by Intel on his Macreplacing them with Chip based on ARC architecture. All this to optimize the performance by making the software “dialogue” better (macOS in the case of the Macs) with the owner hardware (i.e. the new ones Chip of the M series). A similar speech also applies to the Apple C1 modem: Being designed internally, the developers of Cupertino managed to optimize it and, consequently, to make him weigh less on the energy consumption of the device that hosts him.
It must be said, however, that the C1 chip, despite being an advanced 5G modem, It does not support MMWAVE frequencies (Millimeter Wave Products), a technology that allows you to reach data transfer speeds in the Gigabit order, but which is still relatively not very widespread globally. Apple evidently chose to focus on the most common 5G bandsthose that guarantee a stable and efficient connection in most of the contexts of use.
Because the iPhone 16e chip is weakened
Another important novelty of the new iPhone 16E concerns the Chip A18. Although it is substantially the same chip that feeds the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus models, the version included in the iPhone 16e has an important difference: The GPU is reduced And instead of integrating 5 cores it has 4. Why? During their production, some chips do not reach the highest specifications for all their cores (simplifying, by “core” we mean the single processing unit within a chip). Instead of discarding the processors that do not reach the specific requests, it is possible to resort to the practice of “Binning”quite common in the semiconductor market. In simple words, when a chip does not reach its maximum performance, it is “weakened”, in the sense that some cores are deactivated. This means that, instead of being completely tracked, the chip can still be used in a device such as the iPhone 16e, where the slightly lower performance are justified by a lower sale price than a device placed in a higher range of the market.
This version of the chip, despite having a GPU with one core less, should not compromise the general performance of the iPhone 16e, especially as regards the daily use of the device. Travelers who dedicate themselves to more demanding tasks, such as 3D gaming or video editing, may notice a slight reduction in graphic performance, but for most users, the use experience should remain fluid.
