iOS 14 code shows Apple is planning an iPhone 9 and iPhone 9 Plus with the A13 Bionic chip, the same processor used in the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro
9to5Mac has learned several new details about the upcoming iPhone 9 based on iOS 14 code. Now we've discovered evidence that Apple …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second detail to fall out of 9to5Mac's leak of iOS 14 code earlier this month, which first surfaced the iPhone 9 among Apple's planned hardware refreshes; pinning the A13 Bionic inside it confirms the new phone is a re-chip of the existing six-core A13 design rather than new silicon. The playbook has a clear precedent: the 2016 'iPhone 5se' likewise paired a small body with the prior generation's A9/M9 chips.
Why it matters: the A13 is already paid-for, high-volume silicon — Apple credited it with 8.5B transistors and 40% lower power draw on the performance cores in the iPhone 11 — so dropping it into a cheaper phone costs Apple almost nothing in BOM while giving budget buyers last year's flagship performance.
First-order effects
- Buyers of the iPhone 9 and 9 Plus get the exact processor from the iPhone 11 lineup — 20% faster performance cores than the A12 — meaning the price tier no longer buys a meaningfully slower chip.
- Apple can field a small-phone refresh without new chip development, since the A13 is already in mass production across three iPhone 11 models.
Second-order effects
- Android midrange vendors lose their usual spec advantage at that price point, since the iPhone 9 undercuts them on processor generation rather than matching it.
- Apple risks cannibalizing iPhone 11 sales at the margin, so pricing and feature gaps (camera, screen, materials) become the levers that keep the two lines separated.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Apple institutionalizes a two-track lineup — flagship silicon this year, last year's flagship silicon in a cheaper body — stretching each chip's revenue life across multiple product cycles, as the 5se-to-SE lineage already demonstrated.
- The 'Plus' naming itself points to screen-size tiers becoming the durable segmentation axis, a structure later visible in the iPhone 14 and 14 Plus pairing two years on.
The trend: Apple is extending its budget-iPhone playbook of reusing prior-generation flagship chips in smaller, cheaper bodies, turning last cycle's silicon into this cycle's price-tier weapon.