If you don’t upgrade every year and were planning on buying an iPhone 16, a leaker with a solid track record just gave you a potentially good reason to wait for the iPhone 17 instead.
According to their Weibo post, the iPhone 17 will have 12GB of RAM, compared to the 8GB of the iPhone 16 lineup, and they hinted that this will provide a significant advantage when using Apple Intelligence features…
iPhone 17 gets 12 GB RAM
Weibo user Mobile Phone Chip Expert (MPCE) reports:
If you want to upgrade to an AI iPhone, the 2025 iPhone 17 may be a good choice. The internal storage of this year’s iPhone 16 is only 8GB and is mainly designed for cloud-side AI. The internal storage of next year’s iPhone 17 is 12GB and there are more AI applications on the device.
Apple is slowly expanding the RAM. All iPhone 14 models had 6 GB of RAM, regardless of whether they were Pro or not. With the iPhone 15, the base and Plus models were powered by the A16 Bionic chip from the previous year’s Pro models and remained at 6 GB of RAM. The two Pro models not only got the A17 Pro chip, but also increased RAM to 8 GB.
It’s notable that only the two Pro models will be able to run Apple Intelligence, which is likely due to a combination of processor power and RAM. This idea is supported by the fact that all four iPhone 16 models are expected to get 8GB of RAM.
On-device AI to be expanded next year
MPCE suspects that the move to 12GB of RAM is due to Apple’s plans to implement more Apple Intelligence features on the device and make fewer features dependent on cloud processing.
If the iPhone 17 can run more AI functions locally, while other iPhones have to rely on Apple’s Private Cloud Compute (PCC) servers, next year’s models could be significantly faster and more secure in using some of Apple’s intelligence features.
9to5Mac’s opinion
The phone chip expert has a limited but good track record when it comes to Apple’s chip plans. They were the first to reveal that the A16 processor would be exclusive to the two iPhone 14 Pro models, and more recently that Apple is developing its own 3nm chips for its AI servers. This means that the assumption that next year’s iPhones will get 12GB of RAM has to be taken seriously.
Whether this has a significant impact on Apple Intelligence is more speculative. The leaker clearly has insight into Apple’s supply chain, but that would not tell him Why No special changes will be made.
Still, it seems to be a solid theory at least, and is consistent with Apple’s preference for on-device processing wherever possible, as well as the strong suggestion that RAM is a factor in running Apple Intelligence.
Ultimately, of course, it depends on how long you’re willing to wait to access Apple Intelligence. If you don’t currently own an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, you’ll need to upgrade this year unless you’re willing to wait another 12 months. But since we don’t expect the new Siri to launch until sometime next year anyway, it might not be wise to wait until next September. to painful.
Image: Michael Bower/9to5Mac
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