New Report Lists RAM Amounts in iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro Models

[Hank001]

Remember, some of the 8 GB iPad Pros (which came out 1.3 years ago) actually have 12 GB with 4 GB deactivated.

To save battery life as I understand it.

 

[frownface]

i can already smell the lawsuits coming if that new siri comes out in 2026 and requires 12gb of ram to operate.

 

[dampfnudel]

My 16E has 8 gigs, it runs fine. I don’t believe a simple iPhone needs 12 gigs of RAM. Apple probably just wanted it in there.

Apple probably needed it in there for some good reason either related to AI and/or something else.

 

[EugW]

To save battery life as I understand it.

Very unlikely. I'm thinking it is more likely is it was just as cheap for the manufacturer to provide 12 GB chips than 8 GB chips in that specific situation.

i can already smell the lawsuits coming if that new siri comes out in 2026 and requires 12gb of ram to operate.

That's also very unlikely.

 

[Hank001]

Very unlikely. I'm thinking it is more likely is it was just as cheap for the manufacturer to provide 12 GB chips than 8 GB chips in that specific situation.

But copying something stores it in RAM. Since it's not written to 'disk' (SSD), it needs to be kept 'alive'. As far as I know, that requires power. It may very well be negligible, but still needing more power than writing (and retrieving) from te SSD.

I'd really appreciate if you, or anyone really, can educate me on this old perception of mine.