India, July 10 -- Apple's chip strategy for the iPhone 17 lineup may be in for a subtle yet significant shift. According to a post by Weibo leaker Fixed Focus Digital, the upcoming iPhone 17 Air, a new model expected to replace the Plus, could feature the A19 Pro chip, the same processor set to power the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max models.

However, the version used in the iPhone 17 Air may come with a caveat: a reduced GPU configuration. The report claims the Air will ship with a five-core GPU, compared to the six-core GPU found in the Pro models, suggesting a binned chip variant, where one GPU core is disabled, either for performance segmentation or due to chip yield optimisation.

This kind of chip binning isn't new and is commonly used ...