The iPhone 16 lineup features 8GB of RAM, from the base model to the 16 Pro Max, and it's all thanks to Apple Intelligence. Johny Srouji, Apple's vice president of hardware technology, confirmed this in an interview with Geekerwan published yesterday. 9to5Mac discovered.
Srouji explained in the interview that “DRAM is one consideration” when determining the hardware characteristics required for Apple Intelligence. He said the feature “made us believe we needed 8GB.” He added that the extra RAM would also be “tremendously helpful” in tasks such as high-end gaming on devices.
Apple had not previously specified how much RAM the iPhone 16 series has, but MacRumors discovered references to the 8GB figure in Xcode after the phones were announced. Apple, which isn't the only hardware maker to recently increase RAM to offer AI, has said that iOS 18 won't bring Apple Intelligence to the iPhone 15, which will only have 6GB of RAM when the feature set launches. Aside from the iPhone 16 lineup, the iPhone 15 Pro will be the only other phone to support it.
Apart from that, in the approximately 17-minute interview, Srouji discusses the company's hardware performance philosophy, the characteristics of the A18 chips in the new phones, Apple's approach to thermal design, and the video and image processing of the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro.