Apple's A-series chips in the iPhone and iPad are far superior in performance to Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips and Smaunsg's Exynos silicon. But that could change with the next generation of Snapdragon chips.

This is because Ice Universe, a reliable tech tipster, tweeted that the rumored Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip will significantly improve processing and graphics performance without sacrificing efficiency.

This is one of Apple's core successes with its A-series chips. If Qualcomm can emulate this and deliver power that rivals or surpasses the so-called A17 Bionic chip (expected to be in the iPhone 15 and/or iPhone 15 Pro), which will almost certainly use the latest Snapdragon silicon Samsung Galaxy S24, for example, which would be a serious competitor to Cupertino's next-generation smartphones in terms of benchmarks and overall performance.

According to Ice Universe, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will use a "1+5+2" configuration. This means one prime core with the highest clock speed, potentially five performance cores to handle tasks that require power but not the highest clock speed, and two efficiency cores to handle less demanding tasks. However, Ice Universe states that the next generation Snapdragon will "maintain the overall energy efficiency" of Gen 2.

As both models exist only as rumors, it is naturally difficult to answer the above questions. However, we can make some assumptions based on the information known so far.

Apple is likely to have the advantage because it develops both hardware and software. Samsung has no such option, but it manufactures its own Exynos chips, but not all Galaxy S series phones will have them, and Snapdragons often beat out their Exynos stablemates.

However, Apple likes to tout the power of its chips, so if the Galaxy S24 with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 can challenge this, Cupertino may find a way to widen the gap again. This could result in more chip innovation and more powerful and efficient consumer phones.

In actual use, specs and benchmarks may become a bit meaningless except to contextualize a phone's performance: buy the best phone, whether Android or iOS, and you will have a device that can multitask and game with ease for years to come There is a sense of security. That said, increased competition and innovation is definitely a good thing in the smartphone arena.