[aNoob7000]

I wonder if Apple will bump up the amount of RAM in iPhones due to AI. It seems like most LLMs require a large amount of memory.

They've been stingy on increasing RAM compared to Android phones.

[woadwarrior01]

So the trend with Apple has been that the SoC from the current generation Pro and Pro Max devices becomes the SoC for the next generation of baseline devices. For instance the iPhone 14 Pro Max and iPhone 15 have the same SoC (A16 Bionic). And this trend holds all the way back to iPhone 12.

It's almost certain that the iPhone 16 will ship with 8GB of RAM. What needs to be seen is whether iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Maxes will ship with 16GB of RAM (Like with high end M1/M2 iPad Pros with >= 1TB SSD).

[hu3]

So I plotted iPhones RAM and I fail to see a trend that could lead to doubling current RAM to 16GB.

12 Pro Max had 6GB RAM

15 Pro Max has 8GB RAM

16 most likely will have between 8GB and 12GB RAM.

https://i.imgur.com/N7OPjMK.png

[MyFirstSass]

It's one of the most infuriating things about Apple.

The ram tax so absurd it's bordering on criminal, but it also just seems stupid, because if they hadn't put 8gb's of ram in the new smallest macbook air m2 their whole lineup would be more than capable at running local quality LLM's, or double their gaming devices because of their awesome chipset giving them 16gb's of vram essentially, but no, not now when 25% have low ram, ie. no new OS LLM updates.

Also we can't have gaming because half their new sold devices have shit ram, so they also kind of already ditched their "gaming" plan they just got started on a year ago - all because they wan't to push products with ram levels from 10 years ago - bizarre!

They must be betting on local AI as a "pro" feature only.

[whywhywhywhy]

8GB ram models don't exist to be used they exist to be e-waste that gets you to the checkout page where you click 16GB instead.

[cqqxo4zV46cp]

8GB for a premium device in 2024 is a hard ask, completely agree. But I hold absolutely zero hard feelings toward Apple for not catering to gamers as a demographic

Most importantly, though, we are talking about iPhones here. I can’t say I’ve ever thought to myself “gosh, I wish my phone had more RAM!” in…over a decade?

[MPSimmons]

I can't wait until Groq or someone else release tiny mobile inference engines specifically for phones and the like.

[Largeapplemodel]

There's already tiny LLMs for this. They're bad. Because it's not enough information to be coherent.

[HumblyTossed]

> They've been stingy on increasing RAM

... in any of their products.

FTFY

[paxys]

Zero chance the marketing department will let them give up the extra $400 or whatever they get to charge for the bare minimum storage and RAM upgrades on all their devices.

[freedomben]

I think it's silly to think the marketing department gets to control the pricing, but it is definitely very true that the "starting at <great price>" is very powerful for them. Even beyond Apple, it warps and distorts the entire laptop field pricing because people who don't understand how inadequate the entry level model is will compare that price to an entry-level model of Lenovo, or Dell, etc and make conclusions. Even on HN I've seen people use the "starting at" price of macs as a way of "proving" that "the Apple tax isn't much."

So yes, there is tremendous marketing value from that low starting price, although I think it's nearing the end of it's usefulness now that even fan sites are starting to call out the inadequacy.