Apple Becomes a Chipmaker to One-Up Smartphone Foes

In a video introducing the iPhone X, Apple design chief Jony Ive speaks in his usual sonorous tones about features like polished stainless steel and new formulations of glass. Twice, he also calls out a feature of the $999 device that its owners will never see: the A11 "bionic" processor powering the phone. The new chip's prominence reflects Apple's deepening investment in chip design. Last week the company also revealed it had built new custom chips or chip components for artificial intelligence, graphics, and video. And Apple highlighted two new chips in its refreshed smartwatch, suggesting they helped the company add a cellular connection to the device without hurting its battery life.