iPhone 15 Pro could be in line for a big battery boost

(Image credit: 4RMD)

There's potential good news if you're disappointed by the iPhone 14 Pro battery life — things could improve dramatically this fall when the iPhone 15 Pro arrives.

TSMC, which makes the Apple A-series processors which power the company's iPhones, has begun mass production of its new 3-nanometer hardware, according to Bloomberg. And the new silicon should be a lot more power efficient than its predecessors.

“Mass production of 3-nanometer chips is the fruit of decades-long collaboration with the local supply chain,” said TSMC Chairman Mark Liu, promising both an unspecified performance boost and a 35% improvement to efficiency over the company’s 5nm chips.

While the A16 chip found in the iPhone 14 Pro is often referred to as being 4nm, even TSMC itself calls this N4 tech an “enhanced version of N5 technology” in its description of 5nm chip production. That means we can probably assume that the 35% efficiency jump applies to A16 as well as A15.

That’s not just due to the the 3nm production process, but because the A16 wasn’t that big a boost over the A15. The strong rumor is that Apple was planning to be far more ambitious with A16 and then had to change plans at the last moment, retreating to something safe. While disappointing to iPhone 14 Pro buyers this time around, it hopefully indicates a significant leap for 2023’s follow-up.

While the larger iPhone 14 models — the iPhone 14 Plus and iPhone 14 Pro Max — excelled in our battery testing, landing on our best phone battery life list, the 6.1-inch iPhones came up short. The iPhone 14 Pro lasted 10 hours and 13 minutes by when we had it surf the web continuously until it ran out of power. While better than the average smartphone's time, the iPhone 13 Pro held out for two hours longer.

None of the iPhone 15 models are expected before September, of course, so we have some time to wait before we can test the theory. Even then, the expectation is that the basic iPhone 15 will inherit the A16 from this year’s Pro models, leaving the Pro models to demonstrate what 3nm can do.

Early iPhone 15 Pro rumors have included an upgrade to 8GB RAM, the introduction of haptic buttons and a possible periscope lens camera. There’s also the possibility of an iPhone 15 Ultra model replacing the Pro Max, and the expectation that all handsets will finally ditch Lightning for USB-C thanks to incoming EU regulation.

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Freelance contributor Alan has been writing about tech for over a decade, covering phones, drones and everything in between. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are found all over the web and in the occasional magazine too. When not weighing up the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, you'll probably find him tackling his ever-growing games backlog. He also handles all the Wordle coverage on Tom's Guide and has been playing the addictive NYT game for the last several years in an effort to keep his streak forever intact.