Purported iPhone 5 part leaks show off Apple A6 chipset

By Allyson Kazmucha
last updated

The most recent in a slew of iPhone 5 part leaks shows two views of what's reportedly the next-generation iPhone logic board, including one with the shields removed. What makes this so interesting is that it appears from the photos, if they're accurate, that Apple will be using the Apple A6 designation for the iPhone 5's system-on-a-chip (SoC).

With the new iPad, instead of going to an Apple A6 SoC, Apple added a quad-core GPU to the Apple A5 and called it the A5X. That led to speculation that Apple might create a new Apple A5 series SoC for the iPhone 5 as well. Not so, according to the images below, which we've enhanced the image a bit to make out the text better:

iPhone 5 logic board enhanced image

Not going with an Apple A5X SoC, at least the way it's currently engineered for the new iPad, makes a lot of sense. The primary purpose of the Apple A5X chipset was to support the massive 2048x1536 Retina display that was brand new to the 3rd generation iPad platform. The iPhone has had Retina since 2010. It seems more likely Apple would go with the same type of general CPU and GPU performance improvements in the iPhone 5 that they delivered with the iPhone 4S.

Other than the processor you can see a Qualcomm chipset on the main board. That comes as no surprise. There are also different connector positions for the digitizer, LCD, and other components, which is consistent with previously leaked front panels.

In addition, the battery connector looks a bit wider than the current iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S battery connector. It's hard to be sure given the quality of the image, but it could be an indication of a larger battery, which would also be consistent with previously leaked parts.

Given the larger display, rumors of 4G LTE networking, along with space-saving changes like the rumored smaller Dock connector, nano-SIM, and in-cell display, a higher capacity battery certainly seems likely.

Considering the horrible quality of the image, it's always possible that the A6 designation or other features could have been Photoshopped into place. (Seriously, spies, invest in good quality cameras and lights!)

Regardless, iMore's information puts us less than a few weeks away from an official announcement and release. Until then, the parts leaks will no doubt continue, as will our analysis of them.

Allyson Kazmucha
Allyson Kazmucha

iMore senior editor from 2011 to 2015.

7 Comments
  • This is the most wonderful time of the year.
  • So hard to tell what's real or not with these leaks. I want to know WHO exactly has these "parts" and where are they coming from? It would seem that Apple would at least have their own people securing these factories they are being made in so that this doesn't happen. I just started getting into the whole online tech scene, did they have the same leaks for previous devices and were They accurate to the actual product that was released? For me, the only real rumor I truly believe could be true is that A NEW iPhone is gonna be released soon, im not too sure about all these part leaks. Just my opinion
  • These are being leaked in China... People making $2 an hour get offered $100USD to snag a part from a bin of 10,000 of them and snap a pic..... Kinda like the Mexican army guy patrolling the southern border who makes $800 a month gets offered $10,000USD to look the other way while a truck drives up through the dessert.
  • Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the parts leaks from the iPhone 4 and 4S launch seasons were almost spot on.
  • iPhone 4 were spot on because that jackass lost a prototype in bar. The 4s? Not hard to guess what was going to be in it seeing how the "s" releases have mostly been minor refreshes and not total redesigns.
  • I would have to agree, except for one thing . . . the wait is really hard to deal with. 13 days to go until it's supposed to be announced. My hope is its sooner or at least not later than the 12th.
  • The thing is, is Apple going to bother to reengineer an A5X down to 32nm or better when they would be better putting their engineering effort into an Arm-15 chipset down to 32nm, if its possible. This is faster than A9 cores and at 32nm or better, will use less power. So if its an A6 chip is this just a reengineering A5X or are Apple reserving this codename for the next generation Arm-15 cores. Or is it reserved for a smaller die size A5X - there is no way they would be able to fit the physical size of tye current A5X into a iphone anyway. I dont agree that Apple will not go for more power, especially in the GPU department because of their push into the games market. This makes sense as Arm have even been engineering their new Mali GPU's for geneal purpose compute tasks, as seems to be the trend these days. Hence you get more processing power from the GPU without adding any more general purpose processing cores.