During Apple’s “Time Flies” event, CEO Tim Cook took the wraps off a brand-new, totally redesigned fourth-generation iPad Air. Packed inside the device is Apple’s latest iteration of its custom silicon, the all-new A14 Bionic processor.
A14 is the next generation of Apple Silicon
The new A-series chip features an industry-first 5 nanometer process, allowing for a nearly 40% increase in chip transistors. The advantage of this, according to Apple VP of Platform Architecture Tim Millet, is increased performance — without sacrificing power efficiency.
Screenshot: Apple
On top of that, the new A14 Bionic offers a six-core design for 40% better CPU performance, four GPU cores for up to 30% better graphics performance, and a 16-core Neural Engine. This allows the A14 Bionic to offer console-class graphics, edit multiple streams of 4K video, and perform up to 11 trillion operations per second for image recognition, natural language learning or analyzing motion.
While Apple didn’t specifically call out its augmented reality efforts during Tuesday’s presentation, the improvements to the Neural Engine also point toward future AR capabilities. The improvements in image recognition and motion analysis, paired with increased power efficiency, could prove key to Apple’s future efforts in smart glasses, as well as in expanding on-device processing in next-generation iPhones.
The fourth-generation iPad Air is expected to launch in October, with a starting price of $599.
