Apple’s special event this week revealed its new phone lineup, including a new iPhone 17, a super-thin iPhone Air and the flagship iPhone 17 Pro/Pro Max. The Pro range has pushed the boundaries once again in terms of photography and processing, featuring a new A19 Pro chip, which Apple says has the fastest CPU in any smartphone and thanks to an extra bit of engineering, it can perform even faster.
As teased in the original event invite, the iPhone 17 Pro features a vapour chamber within the new aluminium unibody to improve thermal management. When processors are working hard, they produce heat, but if that heat isn’t dissipated, it can slow down the performance. This is why laptops often have fans – to help bring in cool air around the processors and expel warm air.
High-end gaming desktops need to shift a huge amount of heat, and so instead of fan cooling, some use a more effective water cooling method. This essentially moves cool water (or coolant) over the processor in small tubes. As the coolant heats up, it moves away from the processors to a place where it can cool before it is returned to the processor. And repeat. A similar process – on a bigger scale – is used in power plants and other industrial settings.
Gaming phones have featured vapour chamber cooling methods for some time, while Samsung has used it on its Galaxy phones since the S23. OnePlus even produced a concept version of the OnePlus 11 that was liquid-cooled, but this hasn’t made it to market (so far).
There have been rumours of Apple’s vapour chamber technology since 2022, just before the launch of the iPhone 14. However, this is the first time it has appeared on a final model. The vapour chamber on the iPhone 17 Pro contains deionised water and spans a considerable section of the phone’s length. This moves the heat away from the new A19 Pro chip to allow it to work at optimal levels for longer.
Thermal improvements on the iPhone 17 Pro actually start with the aluminium unibody. This is a move away from the titanium that has been used since the iPhone 15 Pro. This aluminium alloy is stronger while remaining pretty lightweight and crucially offers better thermal conductivity to dissipate heat.
By implementing these thermal design improvements, the A19 Pro is able to offer 40% better sustained performance. This means better game play, video editing and more. The previous A18 Pro chip was already more powerful than the M1 chip used in MacBooks and iPads, according to Geekbench, in terms of multi-core CPU and GPU performance. I suspect the A19 Pro chip will at least outpace the M2 chip, which, for a phone, is very impressive.
It’s been noticeable how hot recent iPhone models can get as they try to dissipate the heat from the sensor. Hopefully, these improvements in the iPhone 17 Pro will see significant improvements in this, making the phone not only perform better, but also be cooler in the hand.
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