I am shocked that it is going to 12GB. For 20 years, Apple wouldn’t admit they undersold RAM to ensure forced obsolescence with their lackluster RAM offerings. It wasn’t until last year or maybe earlier this year, that Apple admitted 8GB of Unified Memory isn’t enough in a Mac. So it’s shocking that they are going from 8GB last year to 12GB this year. Plus, the 15 series wouldn’t run Apple Non-Intelligence, as it only has 6GB of memory.
Not even the high end androids last as long as an iPhone. Apples OS is just better optimized for longevity.
I haven’t yet met a single person who upgrades based on RAM. That’s something 90% of consumers know nothing about. Meanwhile, people are holding onto their phones longer than ever.
It doesn’t NEED it. But Apple just decided for whatever reason to increase by 4GB. 8GB was already enough for Apple Intelligence and multitasking in general, even 6GB for most users is more than fine. I can assure you more RAM isn’t going to get many to upgrade.
People seem to forget how well optimized iPhones and Apple products as a whole are. It’s the reason Mac’s lasted with 8GB of RAM standard as long as they did, only reason iPhones got 8GB was for Apple Intelligence support as 6GB according to Apple wasn’t enough to handle on device AI. As comparisons have also shown 8GB has been comparable to android devices with 12GB of RAM so this bump will be quite big even if not entirely necessary.
Yah, they've done a good job of supporting updates and also slowing down devices. But all of this was before AI. Knowing very well that compute power will grow with AI, why not just include extra RAM now? Makes no sense unless it's to force an upgrade.
RAM costs have come down significantly in recent years, likely why Apple is bumping it after two years.
Exactly and the 13 only has 4GB of RAM and I rarely see people complain about performance even on the iOS 26 beta. Devices with 3GB are starting to noticeably struggle though. Apple optimization helps a ton and so knowledge of RAM means little to the average user.
If apple wanted to actually force people to upgrade then they’d limit software updates from 2-3 years like android did for a long time. Yet apple has the proven track record of 5-6 years of updates.
Batteries are not only getting larger across the board but efficiency is improved as well. So battery life will be better even with the added RAM.
What does that have to do with more RAM for AI? How is including 16GB now a poor outcome for anyone? If Apple really wants you to not upgrade (which they absolutely do) then they would spend the extra $5 to give us and extra 2-3 years. Seems quite logical.
Different architecture for starters. And no, the incremental cost isn’t $5.
It would cost a lot more to get 16GB on the SoC — if there’s even room on the die. Most likely, that will have to wait for the 2nm process chips.
I have the iPad Pro with 16GB and
You’d get a lot more performance with the Mac unified memory architecture and MLX or CoreML models. No need for separate RAM and VRAM.
What exactly is the price? I was going off Trendforce NAND but even if packaging onto the custom SoC means extra cost, how much could it be?
12 GB RAM is cheap these days. Remember, some of the 8 GB iPad Pros (which came out 1.3 years ago) actually have 12 GB with 4 GB deactivated.
TSMC stacks the DRAM on top of the CPU when making the SoC for Apple. They could easily use a higher density RAM chip. iPhone 16 uses LPDDR5X (likely 2 x 4 GB dies), and there are higher density dies available, like 6 GB and 8 GB, so Apple could have shipped last year's phone with 12 GB or 16 GB. Thermals should be close enough. I couldn't find any physical specs to confirm if the higher density chips are taller, but I'm guessing that they are probably the same size.
