This year, the entire iPhone 16 lineup has been outfitted with a rare “large” 8GB memory, a surprising move from Apple, known for its meticulous memory allocation.
Apple’s shift in memory strategy is ongoing. According to various sources, the iPhone SE 4, expected to launch in the first half of next year, will also have 8GB of memory. It’s worth noting that the previous generation, iPhone SE 3, only had 4GB of memory and was known for its cost-effective positioning.
Apple, which has always been “selling memory like gold,” suddenly becoming generous with memory configurations has left its long-time users bewildered.
But there’s more—Apple isn’t just relaxing this rule on iPhones; it’s also breaking its “memory as gold” tradition with iPads. Yesterday, Apple finally released the iPad mini 7 after three years. Alongside the A17 Pro processor upgrade, it unexpectedly comes with 8GB of memory, doubling the iPad mini 6’s 4GB.
With even the lower-priced devices now featuring 8GB of memory, could it be that Apple has had a change of heart and wants to give back to its users? In fact, the real reason is to better support Apple Intelligence.
At this year’s WWDC24, Apple Intelligence introduced Apple to the AI wave, with Apple hoping it might mark another “highlight moment.” It’s well-known that to run Apple Intelligence smoothly, not only are powerful CPUs and NPUs required, but high memory capacity is essential. When the beta version was released, only the iPhone 15 Pro series with 8GB memory could try it out.
So, to enable Apple Intelligence on more devices, Apple’s plan to upgrade memory across all devices was inevitable.
Apple’s prioritization of Apple Intelligence has temporarily overridden its traditional “cutting-edge” approach, allowing even the cheaper devices to feature larger memory, which is undoubtedly great news for users.
Still, it’s hard not to comment. Apple considers upgrading from 4GB to 8GB a major improvement, which is ironic—on the Android side, mid-range devices already come with 24GB memory. In comparison, Apple’s memory still seems like it’s made of gold.
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