Apple's iPhone appears to have achieved its pinnacle. At least, that's how the typical model works. Yes, you heard it first right here. Important information!


Now, for real... Although it may appear that "I'm coming in hot," the good news is that Tim Cook and his team are master marketers, and Apple has unrivaled brand awareness, so millions of consumers will still buy the iPhone 14. However, here comes the bad news (leaks and rumors)...


The iPhone XS was Apple's last (official) "S" model, and it looked precisely like an iPhone X. Despite the little differences, the firm appears to have learnt an important branding lesson since then, since we were awarded iPhone 11, iPhone 12, and iPhone 13 despite the minor differences. Because of the cosmetic contrasts between the two, the "S" variant was discontinued.


Sure enough, we've discussed this previously. For the vanilla iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max, however, 2022 seems to be a "S year" in disguise. However, Apple wouldn't be Apple if it didn't have a few tricks up its sleeve to entice customers.


So, let's look at what points to the iPhone 14 being more of a "iPhone 13S" model, as well as which planned advancements would make it a feasible alternative for folks owning earlier iPhones. Perhaps a cheaper iPhone 13 or even the iPhone 15 would be a better option?


Apple will get away with it since the iPhone 14 is the first flagship iPhone to employ an older chip.


  • The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max will have a new A16
  •  Bionic CPU, but the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Max will keep the
  •  A15 Bionic chipset from the iPhone 13 series.

That's the major news, and it's certainly terrible news for anyone looking for the cheapest new iPhone. But! Not for the reasons you may think...


For instance, even with a number of newer Qualcomm and MediaTek launches after September 2021, the A15 Bionic remains the fastest chip on the market. So we know that the "slow chip" argument isn't the case here.

And I believe Apple is poised to take advantage of this situation. Although it has not been confirmed, I believe Cupertino will use the processor from the iPhone 13 Pro instead of the one from the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini for the iPhone 14 and 14 Max.

In case you didn't know, the iPhone 13 Pro's SoC is theoretically superior to the iPhone 13's since it employs an additional GPU core (disabled on the standard version). While this makes almost no difference in real-world use, even for heavy-duty jobs, it's enough for Apple to claim that the processor in the iPhone 14 isn't the same as the one in the iPhone 13, and they'd be correct.