Not a huge surprise, this one: the next processor one will be a quad-core A8 or an evolved A7. The big sell here is more power with better efficiency, which should help battery life.
At the moment, the Apple A7 system-on-a-chip (SoC) is the main focus for the company. This is the first 64-bit mobile chip and it’s extremely fast. In fact, in our benchmarks on using the iPhone 5S, we found that the A7 is by far the fastest mobile processor. Apple has now used the A7 chip in both the iPad Air and iPad Mini with Retina Display.
Where as in the past Apple had to tweak the graphics part of the SoC to work on an iPad’s screen by adding quad-core graphics (the latest chip with the A6X), with the A7 this isn’t required. Instead, the A7 is fast enough as it is.
With that in mind we’d expect to see the same chip used in the iPhone 6. However, the only caveat is when the phone comes out. If it’s early next year then we’d expect the A7 chip to be used as is; if the release date is closer to the end of next year, then we could see a tweaked version, perhaps even a quad-core variant.
