For the iPhone 6S, Apple has spread it's new A9 SoC orders between TSMC and Samsung, and now it seems there are some notable differences among the chips made by each company.
Resorting to two competing companies instead of a single one saves Apple from relying too much on any single supplier for critical components, but in the case of the A9 SoC, the brain of the new iPhone 6S, that means that one company (TSMC) is using a 16nm process, and the other (Samsung) using a 14nm process. Some Apple fans have since said they didn't want a "Samsung iPhone", and now it seems they might have been right all along after all...
Even tough the Samsung build A9 is using a more advanced process, it seems their A9 isn't as efficient as the one from TSMC, with several reports stating the TSMC iPhone 6S can last for 2h more in battery benchmarks.
Sure, we'll need a lot more reports and validated test to actually find out if the TSMC iPhones are indeed less power hungry than Samsung's, but a difference of hours between both versions would certainly cause a lot of complaints among Apple users, particularly in a device where all users value each and every minute of use.
If you have a iPhone 6S or are thinking about getting one the Lirum Device Info lite app can identify which SoC your iPhone has. Samsung powered iPhones are identified as N71AP and N66AP (6s and 6s Plus); while TSMC versions are identified as N71mAP and N66mAP.
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