Apple’s iPhone Air spotted, offering just slight improvements over iPhone 16 Pro

Powered by the A19 Pro chip, Apple’s latest iPhone shows steady rather than dramatic improvements in benchmarks.

Apple has introduced the iPhone 17 lineup, yet the first benchmark results for its new A19 Pro chip have already surfaced, even before the devices become widely available. The chip appears powerful, but its performance jump compared to last year’s generation isn’t as dramatic as initially expected.

According to one of the first AnTuTu results, the A19 Pro scored 2,033,552 points slightly higher than last year’s A18 Pro, which remained below 2 million. Initially, this score was believed to belong to the iPhone 17 Pro, but AnTuTu later clarified that the result actually came from the new iPhone Air, which also houses the same chip. While this detail doesn’t change the overall impression, it helps explain minor variations in the benchmark scores.

According to the released information, the most notable improvement in the A19 Pro comes in the memory department. With RAM increased to 12GB, Apple has reportedly boosted performance in this area by nearly 50%, resulting in noticeably smoother multitasking and better handling of background apps.

However, CPU performance shows a slight dip compared to the A18 Pro, likely due to thermal limitations or early firmware versions. On the other hand, graphics performance and overall system stability remain solid, indicating that Apple continues to prioritize optimization and reliability over chasing sudden benchmark spikes.

Geekbench listings for the A19 Pro show a similar trend: slight improvements in both single-core and multi-core performance, but no revolutionary leap.

Apple has also equipped the Pro models with a vapor chamber to better dissipate heat during long gaming sessions or intensive processing tasks. This feature, however, may not be fully reflected in synthetic benchmark scores, highlighting Apple’s focus on real-world performance and thermal efficiency rather than chasing record-breaking numbers.