Should you wait? iPhone 17 tipped to offer larger 12GB RAM (weibo.com)

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(in Chinese) claims that the iPhone 17 series could come with 12GB of RAM. It is going to be a significant upgrade over the 8GB of RAM of the iPhone 16 lineup. The rumor, originally from Weibo tipster ‘Mobile phone chip expert,’ was first reported by MacRumors.

The iPhone 17 lineup’s 12GB of RAM may help Apple offer more on-device AI features

Apple Intelligence will likely be a major selling point of both the iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 series devices. We have already seen Apple not rolling out its latest AI features to older iPhones and one of the reasons behind it is reportedly insufficient system memory.

A lot of the Apple Intelligence features currently run on cloud servers, which may not be suitable for user privacy. So it will likely be beneficial for users to wait for the iPhone 17 series as it may pack 12GB of RAM. A previous rumor from Haitong International Securities analyst Jeff Pu also mentioned that the iPhone 17 Pro models with come with 12GB of RAM. However, the latest rumor doesn’t explicitly mention whether the entire iPhone 17 lineup or only the Pro models will pack 12GB of RAM.

The iPhone 16 lineup will offer a combination of cloud-based and on-device AI features

The iPhone 16 lineup is rumored to pack a more capable neural processing unit (NPU). It means Apple will be able to implement more complex AI features for the devices. However, it still may not be suitable for the owners of the iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max to upgrade to the latest iPhones. This is because the iPhone 16 lineup will run on 8GB of RAM, which will limit the implementation of on-device AI features. In contrast, Apple may focus more on edge AI features in 2025 with the iPhone 17 series (at least the Pro models).

The 12GB RAM on the iPhone 17 series devices could also enable game developers to offer high-level textures on select games on these mobile devices.

Nonetheless, the iPhone 16 series will bring a new physical button which is reportedly named the Capture button. It offers a number of camera controls such as focusing, zooming in and out, and capturing more conveniently. Users might consider upgrading to the iPhone 16 lineup if they find the enhanced camera controls and the combination of cloud-based and on-device AI functions offered by iOS 18 seems a compelling reason.