Apple is reportedly working on its own mobile GPU, suggesting that it will soon replace Imagination Technologies' PowerVR line, which has been paired with the AX processors for many years now.
It's not surprising to see that the Cupertino brand has started to take on GPUs. A couple of years back, the company developed in-house ARM-based CPU cores, and developing GPUs would simply be Apple's way of continuing its trend of building its own hardware.
Interestingly, Samsung has also been trying to develop mobile GPUs for half a decade now, but the company's efforts haven't yielded any solid results yet. According to Fudzilla, the same goes for Apple, but in this case, it has been working on graphic chips quietly behind the scenes, that is, if the report is true.
If Apple is indeed working on GPUs, it will have a tall order to fill, as the PowerVR GPUs have been proven to be powerful units. This could mean that Apple has something big in store for its consumers or that the company will have to spend quite a lot of time to surpass the performance of the PowerVR.
Aside from that, though, this recent development could simply mean that Apple wants to compete in the market better, but it probably won't lower the prices of its devices. The company will just get bigger profit margins when it successfully builds its own line of GPUs.
Apple is also dedicated in pushing this through, as the company has left the job of working on LTE and 4G modem chips to Intel.
At any rate, Apple has more than enough resources to carry out the task, but that doesn't make it any easier. It's safe to assume that it will take several years before we get to see Apple's own brand of mobile GPUs, so the upcoming iPhone 7 won't be getting them.
