A leaked internal Apple document confirms the company will adopt Wi-Fi 6E on this year’s iPhones. However, only the iPhone 15 Pro lineup will support the faster Wi-Fi standard.
The internal document shows the antenna architecture of devices codenamed “D8x” (the iPhone 15 Pro) and “D8y” (the regular iPhone 15).
Only 2023 iPhone Pro models will feature Wi-Fi 6E support
Multiple analysts recently predicted Apple will adopt Wi-Fi 6E with this year’s iPhone refresh. However, the leaked internal document confirms the upgrade will come only to the iPhone 15 Pro series. It also reveals the antenna position changes between 2022’s iPhone 14 Pro and the upcoming iPhone 15 Pro.
Apple has so far switched to the faster Wi-Fi standard on the M2 iPad Pro, 2023 Mac mini and M2 Pro/Max MacBook Pros. The internal Apple documents were shared by reliable Apple leaker @Unknownz21 to MacRumors.
The benefits of switching to Wi-Fi 6E won’t be immediately obvious. To take full advantage of the new standard, you must connect the device to a Wi-Fi 6E-compatible router. Given the technology is new, such routers are expensive, with consumer adoption still relatively low.
Unlike previous Wi-Fi standards, Wi-Fi 6E operates on the 6GHz channel. This allows it to offer faster throughput speeds, higher bandwidth and lower latency.
iPhone 15 Pro will exclusively use A17 Bionic
The internal documents also confirm the iPhone 15 Pro series will use 3nm-based A17 chips. As for this year’s non-Pro models, they will use the A16 chip found in the iPhone 14 Pro lineup. Apple also intends to keep the rumored solid-state volume and power buttons exclusive to the more-expensive iPhone models.
TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo previously said that the company might reserve its fastest A-series chip for its high-end iPhone models in the future. That seems to be the case, with the feature gap between the regular and Pro iPhones likely increasing with every new iteration.
