The standard iPhone 18 comes with 12GB of RAM for the first time: aligning with the Pro version.
According to media reports on June 16, the standard version of the iPhone 18 will be the first to feature 12GB of RAM, meaning that all iPhone 18 models will come standard with 12GB of RAM, completely abandoning the differentiated strategy of downgrading the RAM of the base model.
Apple has already notified its memory suppliers, requesting upstream manufacturers to prioritize increasing the production capacity of LPDDR5X memory. Moreover, Apple will continue to purchase memory from the world’s three major core memory manufacturers, Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron, at prices higher than the market average. Apple has chosen to absorb the procurement costs that exceed the normal range internally and will not pass them on to consumers to raise the final price.
The core reason that prompted Apple to decide to upgrade its base models with 12GB of RAM is the industry-wide demand for large-scale on-device AI models. At the recently concluded WWDC 2026 developer conference, Apple officially launched a new large-scale on-device AI model, and the full-featured experience places high demands on memory capacity.
According to Apple’s published compatibility details, the previous generation iPhone 17 base model was not eligible for the full-fledged on-device AI large model. The main reason is that this generation of base models is only equipped with 8GB of RAM, and the underlying hardware configuration cannot support the computing power requirements for running the large model locally.
This means that among the currently available iPhone product line, only the iPhone Air, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max can fully run Apple’s on-device AI model, and ordinary basic users cannot experience the full AI functionality.
To ensure that all new iPhones can smoothly run on-device AI capabilities, the standard iPhone 18 must upgrade its RAM to 12GB, leveling the hardware threshold with other models in the series and providing all users with a consistent, full-featured AI experience.
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