iPhones 6S battery life 'varies by up to two hours depending on chip supplier'

TSMC and Samsung make chips for iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, but power consumption varies markedly, according to user reports

Two seemingly identical, brand new, iPhones 6S may have a battery life that differs by up to two hours depending on which of two companies manufactured their processor, according to reports from owners.

The investigations were sparked by a report from technology news site Anandtech that Apple is dual-sourcing one of the key components of the new phones. The A9 "system on a chip", the lump of silicon that lies at the heart of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, is designed by Apple but manufactured by two independent contractors: Korea's Samsung Electronics and Taiwan's TSMC. The two chips interact with the rest of the hardware identically, based as they are on the same designs, but differences in their production is apparently having an effect on how efficient they are at doing their jobs.