This year’s latest iPhones included a significant change that marked a new phase in the evolution of Apple silicon: the Apple N1, Apple’s first in-house chip built to handle local wireless connections. The N1 supports Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and the Thread smart home communications protocol, and it replaces the third-party wireless chips (mostly made by Broadcom) that Apple used in older iPhones.
Apple claimed that the N1 will enable more reliable connectivity for local communication features like AirPlay and AirDrop, but said nothing about how users can expect it to perform. But Ookla, the people behind the Speedtest app and website, have analyzed nearly five weeks of testing data from users to get an idea of how the iPhone 17 lineup stacks up against the iPhone 16, as well as Android phones with Wi-Fi chips from Qualcomm, MediaTek, and others.
While the N1 isn’t at the top of the charts, Ookla says Apple’s Wi-Fi chip “offers higher download and upload speeds over Wi-Fi than the iPhone 16 in every studied percentile and in nearly every region.” The average download speed for the iPhone 17 series was 329.56Mbps, compared to 236.46Mbps for the iPhone 16; The upload speed also increased from 73.68Mbps to 103.26Mbps.
Ookla notes that the N1’s best performance appears to improve scores the most in the bottom 10th percentile of performance tests, “meaning that Apple’s custom silicone raises the floor more than the ceiling.” The iPhone 17 also doesn’t top Ookla’s global performance charts – Ookla found that the Pixel 10 Pro series is slightly ahead of the iPhone 17 in download speeds, while the Xiaomi 15T Pro with MediaTek Wi-Fi silicon has better upload speeds.