Apple is expected to introduce a new cooling technology aboard the iPhone 13 known as vapor chamber cooling – and this is a pretty big deal…
We know quite a bit about the phone now. We have details about the iPhone 13 price, its specs, and its alleged updates. But there are still plenty of things unknown. Chief among these “known unknowns” is what Apple plans to do with the iPhone 13’s battery.
The iPhone 12’s battery issues are well reported. When you’re dealing with 5G, you have two problems to tackle: 1) battery drain, and 2) the phone running hot. Apple didn’t fix either of these problems with the iPhone 12. But that could all change with the iPhone 13.
iPhone 13 To Feature “Vapor Chamber Cooling”
First off, what is vapor chamber cooling? Well, the technology itself isn’t new; a few Android phones – LG’s 5G V40, the ROG 3, and the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra – run some form of cooling systems inside them. As with PCs, these cooling systems help the phone better manage heat.
This is why gaming phones like the ASUS ROG 3 run them; if you’re doing a lot of gaming, you’re pushing the internal components of a phone hard. And this creates heat. In a phone, just as with a PC, heat is not your friend – heat is bad for everything, from your phone/PC’s internal components to performance.
With the iPhone 13, Apple has been developing a vapor chamber cooling that will allow the iPhone 13 – or perhaps the iPhone 14, if the tech is delayed – to run cooler. How vapor chamber cooling works is fairly simple: liquid, usually water, is evaporated by the phone’s heat and, the produced vapor, is put to use cooling off the phone’s internal components.
By tackling and dispersing heat better, the iPhone 13 will be able to perform harder for longer. The vapor chamber cooling technology should also make the phone’s battery more efficient and negate the need for CPU throttling when a user really pushes the phone’s CPU and GPU – like with long, intensive gaming sessions or video-editing apps.
Will The “Vapor Chamber Cooling” Actually Come To iPhone 13?
Respected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has confirmed that Apple is “aggressively testing” vapor chamber cooling technology and has been for a good long while now. Apparently, it was intended for the iPhone 12 but Apple wasn’t satisfied with its performance when the time came to release the iPhone 12.
If true, this means we’ll likely see the vapor chamber cooling technology aboard the iPhone 13. Unless something goes drastically wrong with the R&D and testing. If that turns out to be the case, we might have to wait until the iPhone 14 – although I’m willing to bet this feature will debut on the iPhone 13 Pro Max.
It Will Improve Apple’s A15 Chip Performance
Apple already dominates the mobile space with its A14 CPU. And the A13 before it; nothing currently on the market from Samsung, Qualcomm, or MediaTek can tough Apple’s A-series chips when it comes to performance. And with the A15 CPU, due to land inside the iPhone 13, this trend is likely to continue well into 2021 and 2022.
But the inclusion of the vapor chamber cooling technology inside the iPhone 13 will bolster this gap even further. Why? Because by running cooler, the A15 will be able to kick out more performance; the iPhone 13 will not have to throttle performance because of excess heat and this, in turn, will ensure better, faster performance across the board.
In addition to this, Apple’s incoming vapor chamber cooling technology will also solve the iPhone 12’s battery issues. Hot batteries loose charge faster than cooler batteries, so by reducing the overall temperature of the device, Apple will be able to get more battery life from the same sized battery it used in the iPhone 12. And we all know Apple likes getting more for less.
Coupled together, the A15 chip and Apple’s incoming vapor chamber cooling technology, should make the iPhone 13 completely unbeatable in 2021. It will be the most potent, coolest-running phone on the planet. And because Apple is taking its sweet time developing the vapor chamber cooling technology, you know it will be orders of magnitude better than what we currently have in the Android market.
TouchID (w/ A Twist) Making Comeback In 2021
But it’s not just cooling that is apparently coming to the iPhone 13. Additional reports suggest that Apple will finally be bringing back TouchID to the iPhone 13, albeit in a slightly different manner.
Kuo reckons that the iPhone 13 will be the first non-Home-button-iPhone to feature an under-the-display fingerprint sensor. TouchID will apparently run in this sensor, allowing for a secondary means of unlocking your iPhone – with the first being FACE ID.
Could this be a response to COVID? With more and more people wearing masks, technology like FACE ID has become annoying to use – especially in public places. Adding in TouchID via an in-screen sensor solves this problem. But it also makes me think that perhaps Apple knows more about this COVID pandemic than we do…
It is worth noting that plenty of Android phones have been using in-display fingerprint sensors for a solid couple of years now, so this feature isn’t exactly new. Yes, it’ll be new for iPhone users. But for non-iPhone users, this kind of thing will be viewed simply as Apple catching up with the pack.
Roll on Q3 2021!
