- The iPhone 18 could be in line for a RAM upgrade
- It might get 12GB of RAM to match the other iPhones
- More RAM means better support for AI features
Out of the four iPhones that Apple launched last month, the iPhone 17 stands alone in having 8 GB of RAM – all the others have 12 GB. According to a new rumor, that’s going to change with the iPhone 18 next year.
This comes from South Korea’s The Bell (via MacRumors), and the report suggests that Apple’s regular RAM supplier Samsung has been asked to increase the number of modules available for 2026 production.
An extra 50% bump is a big RAM boost for the iPhone 18, but it makes sense that Apple would want to upgrade this feature: we know AI needs as much memory space as it can get, and no doubt we’ll get more Apple Intelligence improvements next year.
Apple’s iPhones still lag behind Android phones in general when it comes to RAM – the Samsung Galaxy S25, for example, has 12GB of RAM – but can often compensate through the power of their mobile chipsets and their software optimizations.
Latest RAM upgrades
The base iPhone has been equipped with 8GB of RAM since the iPhone 16 launched in 2024, and before that the iPhone 15 made do with 6GB – which is why Apple Intelligence only works on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max from that range of handsets.
All the iPhone 16 models have 8 GB of RAM, so it wasn’t until this year that the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max made the jump to 12 GB. The iPhone Air also runs on 12GB of RAM and shares the same A19 Pro chip as the Pro models (the iPhone 17 uses the standard A19).
Of course, this also has a knock-on effect on performance and pricing, so it will be interesting to see how Apple decides to differentiate between the various iPhone 18 phones if this key specification is the same across them all.
We haven’t heard too much about iPhone 18 rumors and leaks so far, although there has been talk of full 5G satellite connectivity and there could also be a significant camera upgrade for the Pro and Pro Max models.
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