Next year’s standard iPhone 18 will come with 12GB of RAM to support Apple’s most powerful on-device AI model and related Siri features, according to South Korea’s KB Securities (via DigiTimes).
In its Siri AI announcement at WWDC 2026, Apple confirmed that its most powerful model enables more expressive Siri voices and major system-wide improvements to dictation accuracy. Both features require 12 GB of unified memory.
Among current iPhones, this limits the most powerful model to the iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max.
The iPhone 17 is missing out because it only has 8GB of RAM, but the same limitation is not expected for the iPhone 18. Apple will increase the base model’s memory to 12GB while keeping the price of the iPhone unchanged, according to today’s report.
This is the second time we’ve heard that Apple is considering memory parity in its iPhone 18 lineup. Last October, Korea The bell said the iPhone 18 will have 50% more memory than its predecessor.
Apple has apparently asked its RAM suppliers to increase its supply of LPDDR5X chips for the upcoming iPhone lineup. KB Securities also noted that Apple would continue to purchase mobile DRAM from the world’s three largest memory makers – Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron – at prices above market levels, and suggested that the company would absorb the costs rather than pass them on to the consumer.
The iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and foldable iPhone are expected to launch in fall 2026, followed by the iPhone 18, iPhone Air 2, and iPhone 18e in the first half of 2027.
