Apple historically has never revealed a couple of hardware details like for instance the exact amount of RAM or the battery capacity of new iPhones at launch. It is only once these devices start arriving in the hands of reviewers and customers that you come to know, oh, so and so iPhone has this much amount of RAM, or that it has that big of a battery. Things are a bit different with this year’s iPhone 16 series, though.
For the first time ever, Apple has come out and officially confirmed that the entire iPhone 16 lineup—including the iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max—comes packing 8GB of RAM. This major upgrade, which applies to even the base models, was confirmed by Johny Srouji, Apple’s VP of hardware technology, in an interview with Geekerwan.
Srouji highlighted that the increased RAM, particularly inside the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, has been put for Apple Intelligence, a new feature set to enhance the iPhone’s performance across various tasks. “DRAM is one aspect,” Srouji said, explaining that Apple Intelligence requires advanced hardware, leading the company to upgrade the iPhone 16 series to 8GB. This additional RAM, he noted, will significantly improve the device’s capabilities in high-end gaming and other resource-intensive applications as well.
Apple Intelligence AI is a key USP of the new iPhones. The iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max will also support it, but not the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus. This is because the 15 and 15 Plus have only 6GB of RAM which appears to be a big bottleneck for running Apple Intelligence features. The Apple Intelligence roll out will only start in October with iOS 18.1 update though. All the iPhone 16 series devices will ship with iOS 18 from September 20.
Prior to this confirmation, Apple had kept details about the iPhone 16’s RAM under wraps. However, MacRumors previously uncovered references to the 8GB RAM in Xcode after the phones were announced. Apple’s decision to increase RAM aligns with the industry trend, as several other manufacturers are also boosting RAM to support AI-driven functionalities. Google recently launched the Pixel 9 series devices with even more RAM—16GB—which is twice of what was available on the Pixel 8.
