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All iPhone 17 Models Again Rumored to Feature 12GB of RAM
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It’s a deliberate design decision to visually differentiate new iPhones from old ones. Pretty soon, if you don’t have a lump, everyone’s going to know you’ve got the “old” iPhone. No lump means you’re going to be marked out as poor, or at least unfashionable, by your peers.
Social pressure to upgrade will be stronger than ever and Apple will make bigger profits. Those designers will probably get accolades, promotions, and vouchers for a free meal at one of Cupertino’s finest restaurants. Not the sack!
Are you talking about students? As an adult in the workforce I don't see anybody that I'm aware of that cares about trying to impress people with their phone.
No real reason why it couldn’t. The original developer transition kit macs that Apple sent out to developers to prepare for Apple Silicon were running macOS on A12Z chips!
A-series and M-series chips are built on the exact same underlying architecture. It’s just the M-series are scaled up with more cores, higher performance, and higher power levels.
Likewise, iOS and macOS are both built on the same underlying core OS (Darwin). They’re just variations with different sets of hardware support/drivers, and different user space components.
The critique I have of the 17 pro mockups is that the area below the camera module should be glass for the MagSafe to function, which suggests to me that the camera module will be aluminum.
Apple probably underestimated the memory requirements for Apple Intelligence and now they’re scrambling to bump up the RAM. They probably tried hard to make 8GB work, but the results they got back may have been subpar. So if you want AI in all of its “glory”, you’ll need an iPhone with at least 12GB of RAM. In a way, the iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max, 16 and 16 Pro/Pro Max are similar to the iPhone 6/6 Plus which should have gotten 2GB of RAM instead of only 1GB.
This is what happens when Tim’s penny pinching ends up hurting customers. iPhone 6 owners know that with their memory gimped phones. Apple could’ve bumped up all 16 models to 12GB, but Tim’s stubbornness has now resulted in broken promises for millions of iPhone 16/16 Pro/16e owners. Some of them may not care that their phones will never be AI capable or only capable of very limited AI functionality, but I imagine some will be furious enough to file a lawsuit.
Just checked, there is zero evidence that the 16s don't have some AI features because they have 8GB RAM. But why dont you tell us whichAI features are missing due to their not having 12GB RAM?
12GB may be necessary for the next generation of Siri/AI integration with features like on screen awareness and a couple of other features I can’t recall at the moment. Processing will be faster, possibly more accurate than before with Siri.
That used to be the case years ago, but now that smartphones have become ubiquitous, having the latest isn’t as relevant anymore when they all seem to blend in…at least until Apple releases the folding iPhone.
Swap memory is a feature of the operating system, not the silicon.
AFAIK, there was nothing custom about the A12Z in the DTK. It was just the same as the A12Z in the iPad Pro, except for being paired with 16GB RAM instead of 6GB, and perhaps higher clock speed (if you have evidence that suggests otherwise, please share!)
Even the DTK motherboard seems derived from iPhone/iPad hardware: there's a video on YouTube of a guy restoring a DTK machine and it just shows up as an iPhone when plugged in on DFU mode!
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They should have released the base M4 iPP with 12GB RAM. Now we will be in a situation where the iPhone 17's will have more RAM than the significantly more powerful M4 iPad Pro's. Not a big deal, but strange nevertheless.
Typical Apple being cheap with RAM.
Yep. And I will gladly partake in any class action suit against them if them limit ANY of the promised AI features from the iPhone 16 Pro and say you need an iPhone 17.
When Apple ported Stage Manager over to the A12 iPad Pros, unlike the M1s they got the windows but not swap memory.
Will be great if the base models too get 12GB RAM. This combine with 120Hz display will surely make it a very good iPhone.
That would be a downgrade to go from 8GB to 12MB (megabytes). 😂
That's really ugly phone, not getting used to it. I really love how Samsung managed to sort it out without a surrounding camera bump.
Thats not how unified memory works. And why do you think that AI needs constant access to 8GB?
well, that just halt my purchase of an iPad Pro with 8GB RAM.
imagine splurging and in 6 months they just double the RAM.
then in a year, they come out with 120Hz on the Mini which is my favorite form factor,
then in two years they make a foldable.
nothing is worth purchasing, knowing it's not going to stay the best for long - and what you are purchasing now is not even what they are capable of, but what they were capable of 2 years ago or longer.
imagine splurging and in 6 months they just double the RAM.
then in a year, they come out with 120Hz on the Mini which is my favorite form factor,
then in two years they make a foldable.
nothing is worth purchasing, knowing it's not going to stay the best for long - and what you are purchasing now is not even what they are capable of, but what they were capable of 2 years ago or longer.
This seems good, but what about the design? This design doesn't give the proper Apple model feel to the users!