We all want to know what the highly anticipated iPhone 16 will be like, and the latest rumor suggests that the phone will come with RAM and storage upgrades, specifically to accommodate the additional AI features on board.
This is a report from South Korea that claims the basic iPhone 16 could come with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage to give the integrated AI more space to think, store, and process commands.
For comparison, the cheapest iPhone 15 comes with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage (although there are also versions with 256 GB and 512 GB). The extra space is necessary for the additional work that generative AI tools require.
What do we know about AI in the next iPhone 16
Only Google’s smallest AI model, Gemini Nano, is compact enough to fit in a smartphone, specifically in the Pixel 8 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S24 devices. This could change in the future, but many of the AI calculations are currently offloaded to the cloud.
Some analysts speculate that the RAM capacity of the iPhone 16 will increase due to AI on the device. However, it is said that Apple is investigating to run AI on the device using flash NAND instead of RAM.
Apple is proud to do as much computing work as possible locally, without transferring data streams to and from web servers. This means that most of your information is stored only on your phone or laptop, where it is safe and private.
If that’s going to happen with the artificial intelligence features that Apple has been promising, then the iPhone 16 might need a little more power. However, as this informant acknowledges, nothing is confirmed yet and Apple’s plans could change.
It also raises the question of how far these AI functions could reach older and less powerful phones.
We don’t know exactly what these AI features from Apple will consist of, but everything points to iOS 18 including a lot of generative AI tools similar to what we’ve seen on other phones (and interestingly, Google might be lending a hand).
