Qualcomm today unveiled the Snapdragon 8 Elite mobile platform, which features a next-generation custom Qualcomm-designed Oryon CPU instead of the semi-custom Kryo Arm-based chips from prior SoCs. According to Qualcomm, the Snapdragon 8 Elite features the "world's fastest mobile CPU," outperforming even the A18 Pro chip in the iPhone 16 Pro series.
The Oryon CPU is built on a 3-nanometer process, much like Apple's most recent chips. It has eight cores in total, including two prime cores and six performance cores, and it is able to reach peak CPU speeds of 4.32 GHz. Qualcomm also claims that it has the "industry's largest shared cache" to enable "insanely fast data retrieval." There's also a new "Adreno" GPU, and Qualcomm says it uses a "revolutionary sliced architecture" for faster performance and battery life optimizations.
Qualcomm built the chip with generative AI in mind, and it has an included Qualcomm AI Engine with Multimodal Gen AI that Qualcomm says can better understand voice, text, and images, viewing the world through the camera on a smartphone to help with tasks.
Compared to prior-generation Qualcomm chips, the Snapdragon 8 Elite features 45 percent faster CPU performance and 44 percent better power efficiency.
The chip integrates the Qualcomm Snapdragon X80 5G modem with Wi-Fi 7 and 5G support. It will be used in Android-based devices from companies like Google, Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and more.
Monday September 22, 2025 12:44 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple released the first beta of iOS 26.1 today, just a week after launching iOS 26. iOS 26.1 mainly adds new languages to Apple Intelligence, but there are a few other features that are worth knowing about.
New Apple Intelligence Languages
Apple Intelligence is now available in Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese.
AirPo...
Monday September 22, 2025 10:00 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The next Apple TV is expected to be released later this year, and a handful of new features and changes have been rumored for the device.
Below, we recap what to expect from the next Apple TV, according to rumors.
Likely Features
N1 Chip With Wi-Fi 7
Last year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the next Apple TV would be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, which is...
Monday September 22, 2025 11:15 am PDT by Juli Clover
With iOS 26.1, Apple Intelligence is gaining support for additional languages, including Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese.
Apple announced plans to expand the languages that can be used with Apple Intelligence last year, and now the added language support is here. Apple Intelligence is now available in the following...
Monday September 22, 2025 7:29 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The website ChargerLAB has tested the iPhone 17 Pro Max's USB-C charging speeds with a variety of Apple's chargers, from 18W to 140W.
The device reached a peak charging speed of around 36W with the following Apple chargers:40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max
61W USB-C Power Adapter
67W USB-C Power Adapter
70W USB-C Power Adapter
96W USB-C Power Adapter
140W USB-C Power AdapterFor...
Monday September 22, 2025 8:44 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple's latest iPhone models launched on Friday, and some early adopters of the devices are experiencing intermittent Wi-Fi issues.
Affected customers say Wi-Fi connectivity periodically cuts out on the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air, with hundreds of comments about the issue posted across the MacRumors Forums, Reddit, and the Apple Support Community over the...
Monday September 22, 2025 2:16 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Next year's rumored foldable iPhone will showcase an ultra-thin design resembling "two titanium iPhone Airs side-by-side," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Writing in the Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman says Apple's first foldable device will be "super thin and a design achievement," combining Apple's thinnest iPhone form factor with cutting-edge folding...
Friday September 19, 2025 10:02 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
As reported by Bloomberg today, some of the new iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air models on display at Apple Stores today are already scratched and scuffed.
French blog Consomac also reported on this topic.
The scratches appear to be most prominent on models with darker finishes, including the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max in Deep Blue, and the iPhone Air in Space Black.
Images Credit: Consoma ...
Tuesday September 23, 2025 8:55 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are still a year away, there are already a few rumors about the devices that offer an early look ahead.
Below, we have recapped some of the early iPhone 18 Pro rumors so far. This story was published previously, and it has been updated to reflect the latest rumors.
Many early rumors prove to be true, but nothing is confirmed yet, and Apple's...
Tuesday September 23, 2025 1:06 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Digital ID, the iOS 26 feature that lets U.S. passport holders add their passports to the Wallet app, is coming later in 2025, Apple confirmed today.
Apple updated the release timing wording of Digital ID on its iOS 26 features page. "Digital ID will be coming later this year with US passports only," it reads.
Prior to today, the footnote for the feature said "Digital ID will be available ...
Is the claim 'fastest clock speed' or 'fastest when we put eleventy billion cores against one Apple core'?
Their footnote says compared to a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and a 45% ST improvement would put them at 3,101. A18 Pro is 3350ish. That's wouldn't be the fastest so it sounds like more Qualcomm bullcrap.
Multithread would be about 9,690 compared to 8,080ish, but that's with eight cores to six...so again, not an even comparison, but not a surprise from Qualcomm.
And their launch partners are mostly known benchmark cheaters, so I hope the testers take that into account.
If all of this is true, we knew it was a matter of time that the competition would catch up. Even Intel is making great strides with moving x86 closer to ARM (although they're still quite a ways off). Apple Silicon truly revolutionized the industry, and Apple should get a lot of credit for it. Although I'm quite critical of Apple in a lot of aspects, the M3 15" MacBook Air is the best laptop I've ever owned, and in my opinion the best laptop ever built.
