When Apple announced iOS 18 and Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2024, it needed to face a terrible truth: AI would cause the best fragmentation in iPhone history. Brand recent devices just like the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus will grow to be obsolete, no less than on the subject of artificial intelligence.
Sure, Apple Intelligence remains to be in its early stages of development and is much from where Apple would really like it to be. No one will blame you should you don’t benefit from most of Apple Intelligence’s features now. I say this as an AI fan in Europe who still doesn’t have Apple Intelligence support. Only when Apple’s artificial intelligence starts working will iPhone 15 users realize the differences.
Apple needed to face the music he composed. Over the years, the corporate has optimized iOS to run on more limited hardware. A giant problem for AI was the 6GB RAM in the bottom iPhone 15. But Apple also course-corrected. All iPhone 16 models ship with recent chips and 8GB of RAM. iPhone SE 4 (or iPhone 16E) will receive the identical high-end components to support Apple Intelligence.
Apple also preemptively fixed a RAM issue on Mac computers that may run Apple Intelligence. All MacBooks currently ship with 16GB of RAM, whether it is the old M2 or M3 Air or the brand recent MacBook Pro M4.
It seems that Apple Intelligence may pose one other problem that customers may not expect: it needs more memory on the device. This could possibly be a excellent reason to present iPhone 17 buyers a surprise upgrade that can find yourself being an enormous price cut.
Apple’s AI vision places a powerful emphasis on privacy. Apple Intelligence will initially attempt to handle the requests on the device. If this fails, it can hand over the duty to the private cloud infrastructure built for Apple Intelligence.
Therefore, Apple Intelligence might have more local storage with each update that Apple releases. iOS 18.1 told us that Apple Intelligence needed 4GB of memory on the iPhone. But, How As he emphasizes, Apple has modified the minimum requirements for Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.2. Apple Intelligence now needs almost twice as much disk space 7GB.
Keep in mind that Apple is not done rolling out AI features on iPhone yet. iOS 18.4 will introduce a significant update by March that can enable the smarter Siri we saw at WWDC 2024. iOS 19 will then bring additional Apple Intelligence features to supported devices.
I would not expect Apple Intelligence’s storage needs to double, but I can see AI needing more disk space. Let’s assume it goes to 10GB or 15GB, which is about 10% of the storage available on a 128GB iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence. Then there’s the operating system. iOS 18.2 takes up almost 24GB on my iPhone.
This quickly adds up and you may realize that 128GB of built-in storage isn’t any longer enough. This will definitely influence your next purchase decision as you will be on the lookout for a 256GB or 512GB option.
This is where Apple can nip the issue within the bud if it desires to. The company may set 256GB because the minimum storage tier for all iPhones.
Apple did this with the iPhone 15 Pro Max in 2023, without increasing the value of this model. Technically, the bottom price of the Pro Max has increased by $100. Apple could do the identical with the iPhone 17 series. The entry-level iPhone 17 could accommodate 256GB of storage and begin at $899, which is the value of the present iPhone 16 with 256GB of storage.
But what if Apple took the M4 MacBook Pro approach? In the brand new laptops, Apple upgraded the RAM to 16 GB without increasing the price, which saved the user $200. What if Apple did the identical with the iPhone 17?
What if the bottom model of the iPhone 17 began at $799, the identical price because the iPhone 16, but had twice the capability? Apple could use the identical strategy for the iPhone 17 Air, which can replace the Plus and take its price tier.
Add to this the rumors that ProMotion support can be available on non-Pro iPhone 17 models, and these devices can be very competitive.
I might also expect Apple to maintain Pro prices unchanged. iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max would match the costs of their predecessors. In this scenario, there could be no iPhone 17 within the 128 GB version in Apple’s offer. If that happened, we would have an even bigger difference between the iPhone 17 ($799) and the iPhone 17 Pro ($1,099).
Apple, then again, couldn’t do anything about it and just leave the present memory levels alone. In this case, the choice is as much as the customer. This wouldn’t be one of the best selection when it comes to marketing. The RAM upgrade within the MacBook Pro M4 has given Apple good publicity.
Additionally, increasing iPhone memory could be in Apple’s long-term interest. This could be an investment in its own future needs, as Apple would ultimately develop the Apple Intelligence features that iPhone users will need, features that can make them proceed to purchase iPhones and other devices in Apple’s lineup.
More directly, increasing iPhone storage would have a direct impact on iCloud+ cloud storage purchases. iPhone owners save more data locally and can need more backup space.
This is all speculation, in fact. iPhone 17 memory levels haven’t been leaked and should not reveal themselves for a while. However, this doesn’t change the proven fact that storage is usually a problem within the era of AI computing. Not only iPhone, but all Apple devices will need local storage assigned to Apple Intelligence. The same may apply to competing devices running other AI platforms.
