Recently, reports began to appear on the Chinese Weibo forum that the iPhone 17 lineup will receive an increase in RAM to 12 GB. Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo clarifies that this applies only to the iPhone 17 Pro Max. This was reported by MacRumors.
If Kuo is correct, this means that the iPhone 17 Pro, the base iPhone 17, and the new iPhone 17 Slim will all have 8GB of RAM. The fourth generation iPhone SE, expected in early 2025, will reportedly also have 8GB of RAM.
Among the 2025 new iPhone models, only the iPhone 17 Pro Max will feature the following specifications:
— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) August 29, 2024
1. 12GB DRAM (while the ultra-thin iPhone, iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and SE4 will all have 8GB). Enhanced on-device AI capabilities will likely be a major selling point for…
The amount of RAM in Apple devices is becoming increasingly important. Apple believes that 8 GB is the minimum required for the Apple Intelligence features that will be coming to iOS 18. This means that only the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max of Apple's current smartphones will support them. The iPhone 15 and 15 Plus have only 6 GB of RAM.
While the move to 8 GB of RAM starting with the iPhone 16 line will allow all new iPhones to support Apple Intelligence in the future, a further jump to 12 GB is likely to provide even more powerful AI capabilities.
In addition to the increased RAM to 12 GB, Kuo says that the iPhone 17 Pro Max will also have an exclusive cooling system that combines steam chamber technology with graphite sheets. Other new iPhone models coming to market in 2025 will use only graphite sheets for cooling.