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Leaker: Apple Downgrading iPhone 18 to Cut Costs

I think that we are not the target audience and many people won't know if it has 1 fewer cores than it might have or slightly different Nits, or if they keep LPDDR5X-8533. Most people won't care about a lot of this. Certainly those of us here do.
🙂
 
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ikramerica said:
If they want the Air2 to succeed, the 18 can’t be as good as the 17 was in comparison to the Air.

If the Air2 finds a way to get a second camera and return some of the camera technology the Air dropped, while the 18 goes sideways compared to the 17, the Air2 is no longer a compromise. Just “different”
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If Apple wanted Air 2 to succeed, they'd launch it alongside 18 Pro/Max/Ultra.

Nobody is going to wait 6 month buy Air 2 for $999 when they can buy 18 Pro for $1,099 on day one. People willing to wait 6 months are pragmatic, wait and see customers. Those aren't Air customers.
 
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"Certain manufacturing downgrades" seems to suggest the differences will not involve any key features, but will involve the way the phone is constructed or the materials used.

I can't imagine that the 18 will be released with a nerfed camera or lower RAM.
 
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ikramerica said:
If they want the Air2 to succeed, the 18 can’t be as good as the 17 was in comparison to the Air.
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They actually lost Pro sales to the Air, not 17 sales. (So if they followed that logic, wouldn't they make the Air worse to get more people to go Pro?)

www.macrumors.com

iPhone Air Said to Be Roughly Twice as Popular as iPhone 16 Plus

While it certainly has its critics, the iPhone Air appears to have validated Apple's decision to retire the iPhone Plus, if new results from an independent analysis are anything to go by. Crowdsourced Speedtest data published by Ookla suggests the iPhone Air captured 6.8 percent of iPhone 17...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com
 
JPack said:
If Apple wanted Air 2 to succeed, they'd launch it alongside 18 Pro/Max/Ultra.

Nobody is going to wait 6 month buy Air 2 for $999 when they can buy 18 Pro for $1,099 on day one. People willing to wait 6 months are pragmatic, wait and see customers. Those aren't Air customers.
Click to expand...

Not only that, once Air 2 comes out it will be followed by iPhone XX about six months later.
 
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uiop. said:
Reading this rumor with a lot of skepticism. I can't imagine they're downgrading in the sense that the 18 will have fewer features than the 17, more likely title would be "iPhone 18 not getting as many of the 18 Pro's features to cut cost".
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This seems the most likely. I imagine the one upgrade the 18 will get over the 17 is the A20 chip apart from that it will be pretty much the same as the the current base 17 model.
 
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If the iPhone 18 is just the iPhone 17 but with 12GB of RAM instead of 8GB it will still be a very very solid update.

___

Apple also could do some things that don't cost anything to make local AI better. A17/M4 CPUs added the ability to use INT8 with AI models which make a LOT of new things possible, but newish Nvidia chips(40x0 and 50x0 chips) do a lot more by supporting microfloats(8bit/4bit floating point)***.

*** Google's TPUs started supporting FP8 in TPUs made in late 2025 and those TPUs still have no support for FP4 formats(for comparison to other non-Nvidia accelerators). Microfloats seems to mostly be important for running image generation models quickly, while INT8 is generally VERY useful.
 
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JPack said:
Pretty obvious Apple doesn't want to increase the price from $799. This is like Neo, Apple won't increase from $599 and would rather cut the specs.

Probably things like:

  • Keeping LPDDR5X-8533 instead of moving to 9600.
  • More A20 cores disabled to further improve yield.
  • Slower or same as 18e NAND speed.
  • If you look at the Neo chassis under a microscope, the surface is rougher than Air. Apple could apply the same finishing standard to iPhone 18.
  • Shorter USB-C cable (0.8m)
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This is the level headedness needed, but best believe those who are desperate for clicks and engagement across X, YouTube, TikTok, FB etc…will run with “no 120hz screen” 🙈
 
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They can already save a lot by selling 17 at a discounted price. What is the point in inventing something new every year? Cut the R&D costs and it is the best strategy, most people will opt for the cheaper anyway
 
This will be the time where Apple could push an iCloud only iPhone, just a little bit of local memory but all the storage is on iCloud, then the storage that you need for your device is how much you’re willing to buy. 🤔📱☁️💰
 
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Kill the e, kill the Air, drop numbering and sub-naming.

Current lineup:
iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 17e, iPhone 17, iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max

New lineup:
iPhone (three sizes), iPhone Pro (three sizes), iPhone Ultra

Bob's your uncle; Fanny's your aunt; Checkmate.
 
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They could also just stick it with the same A19 chip, and only upgrade something like the new apple modem/wifi chips.

They've done this with the iPhone 13->14, kept the same chip.

They will probably re-do the camera control button across the entire lineup, because it's a needlessly complicated and expensive item, and almost all people don't like the way it functions. It would be great if it was a simple 2-step shutter button like on normal cameras.
 
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iPhone 17 was, frankly, "Too good" and likely stole some sales of the 17 Pro.

Differentiation was almost entirely "minor stuff" beyond the 8x telephoto. Compare to 16/16 Pro, where there were legit differences (ProMotion, screen size, aluminum vs. titanium, 12MP vs 48MP ultra-wide) - all of those differences went away with the 17.
 
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JPack said:
It's spring 2027 and since everything else is frozen, i.e. iPhone 18 Pro/Max/Ultra is sticking with 12GB RAM and 256GB base storage, the iPhone 18 will look fine.
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typo. thanks

Not sure I think iPhone 18 is going to be an 18e light of sorts but we'll see! Probably going to be a bigger incentive to push people to Pro, Air 2 or the fold.
 
saulinpa said:
So what will be the difference between the 18 and 18e ?
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I'm wondering the same thing. If they're both released a year from now, I suppose the meaningful differentiators are the screen refresh rate, dynamic island, and the price. Is that worth $200? Not so sure about that.
 
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FreakinEurekan said:
iPhone 17 was, frankly, "Too good" and likely stole some sales of the 17 Pro.

Differentiation was almost entirely "minor stuff" beyond the 8x telephoto. Compare to 16/16 Pro, where there were legit differences (ProMotion, screen size, aluminum vs. titanium, 12MP vs 48MP ultra-wide) - all of those differences went away with the 17.
Click to expand...
Yep, it was one of the best year to year updates that I can recall. I know several people that don't upgrade often that pulled the trigger on the standard 17 because it was that worthy of an upgrade. It's a shame they nixed the Plus, because that would have been great in a larger size.
 
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I wonder if it is that the regular 17 is so good that it's eating into the sales of their high margin pro phones?

I suspect that we'll see barely an upgrade from the 17 with the 18.

And probably the oft rumoured simpler - and cheaper no doubt - camera control 2.0.
 
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Makes you wonder if the 18 will be what the 18e was going to be, and not have the 18e at all, just keep the 17e around. Basically call the 18e the 18 and charge the full $799 18 price for it.

If people think they need a phone in the next year they might be better off buying something from the 17 lineup now.
 
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