The iPhone 16 will launch on September 9th and hit stores about ten days later, but we already have the first iPhone 17 rumors out there that go beyond repeating the claim that an ultra-slim iPhone 17 Air device will replace the current Plus model.
A leak from China said earlier this week that Apple will upgrade the RAM of iPhone 17 models to 12GB of RAM. That’s a big bump that I’ve been expecting ever since Apple unveiled Apple Intelligence. On-device AI requires powerful chips with fast Neural Engines and plenty of RAM. The latter is one of the key reasons only the iPhone 15 Pros can support Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.
Well-known Apple insider Ming-Chi Kuo has a new development. He took to X to explain that only the iPhone 17 Pro Max will get 12GB of RAM. The phone will also feature a vapor chamber. Both would be firsts for the iPhone lineup. The RAM upgrade would be great news for Apple’s AI ambitions. It’s also a key detail for Apple Intelligence upgrades in iOS 19.
Google just unveiled the Pixel 9 series, giving its phones a massive memory upgrade. The base model has 12GB of RAM, while all the Pros get 16GB of memory. Each features 4GB more RAM than last year’s Pixel 8 predecessor.
Google explained that some of the RAM is dedicated to on-device Gemini Nano processing. It did not reveal how much memory it allocated to AI. You can’t reclaim that RAM for the system if you choose to disable all Gemini features.
I said at the time that it would be interesting to see what the early iPhone 17 rumors say about Apple’s RAM choices. If all iPhone 17 models were to get 12GB of RAM, it would be a sign that future Apple Intelligence features might need better resources than what will be available to them on the iPhone 15 Pros and iPhone 16.
The prospect of getting an iPhone 17 Slim with 12GB of memory might also make some people reconsider their iPhone 16 choices this year.
Thankfully, Kuo dropped his right in time for the iPhone 16 launch. The analyst is usually correct about Apple’s plans for unreleased devices. And while it’s still too early to talk about a finalized iPhone 17 specs sheet, it looks like Apple isn’t in a hurry to give its iPhones a big memory upgrade.
Kuo says that the iPhone 17 Pro Max will be the only model of next year’s iPhones to feature 12GB of RAM. The regular iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Slim, and iPhone SE 4 will have 8GB of memory. Kuo also said that “enhanced on-device AI capabilities will likely be a major selling point for the iPhone 17 Pro Max.”
This indicates that next year’s Pro Max model might get a few exclusive Apple Intelligence features via iOS 19. If the RAM detail is correct, then all iPhone 16 models will support almost all Apple Intelligence features in iOS 19. They should be on par with the iPhone 16 and iPhone 15 Pros.
That is, we should not get another big software fragmentation once iOS 19 drops. As a reminder, iOS 18 will deliver the biggest fragmentation in iPhone history. Hundreds of millions of iPhones will not run Apple Intelligence come September because they lack the hardware.
Kuo’s predictions didn’t stop at RAM. He also said the iPhone 17 Pro Max will feature an upgraded cooling system that integrates a vapor chamber and graphite sheets. This will be another exclusive for the next Pro Max and a feature I hoped we’d see on iPhones since the overheating issues the iPhone 15 Pros brought along.
If the claim is accurate, the A19 Pro chip that will power next year’s iPhone 17 Pros might be even more powerful on the Pro Max.
The reason Apple is going for these exclusive features concerns the popularity of the iPhone 17 Pro Max among buyers:
Pro Max currently accounts for nearly 40% of new model shipments, making the most significant contribution to Apple’s revenue and profit among hardware products. The differentiation strategy of providing the best specifications (beyond a larger display size than Pro) for Pro Max is expected to continue.
Again, we’re looking at early rumors. Even if Kuo’s information is accurate, Apple has plenty of time to change the iPhone 17 specs to meet its iOS 19 needs.
