It's time to investigate the new kid on the block, and it's fly like an A7. Along with the fingerprint sensor, the A7 is a major enticement for consumers to pick the 5s over the 5c.

The A7 is advertised as providing twice the performance of the 5 (and 5c)'s A6 processor.

The switch to the A7 marks the first use of a 64-bit processor in a smartphone. Based on AnandTech's review, it seems that the bulk of the A7's performance gains do not come from any advantages inherent to a 64-bit architecture, but rather from the switch from the outdated ARMv7 instruction set to the newly-designed ARMv8.

The modern ARMv8 instruction set was designed for a 64-bit architecture. It does away with the legacy support of the last 20 years, which increases efficiency, improving performance without sacrificing battery life.

We'll have to wait until we get inside the chip to find out who manufactured it.