Apple will supposedly bump the base model iPhone 18’s RAM by 4GB for a total of 12GB. The additional memory will ensure the new iPhone supports all Apple Intelligence features in iOS 27.
A DigiTimes report says that despite memory becoming substantially more expensive, the company does not plan to bump the iPhone 18’s price.
12GB RAM and no price hike for iPhone 18?
DRAM and NAND prices have surged in recent months, forcing almost every manufacturer to either raise device prices or cut back on specifications.
Apple has remained resilient so far, absorbing the higher component costs at the expense of its profit margins. Apparently, the company is using this opportunity to capture a larger market share over its Android rivals.
Despite the higher component costs, DigiTimes reports that Apple will increase the base model iPhone 18’s RAM to 12GB — 50% more than the iPhone 17. That’s the same amount as the two iPhone 17 Pro models.
More importantly, the report says Apple will stick with the same $799 starting price for the iPhone 18.
To meet the increased memory demand, Apple has asked its top memory suppliers — SK Hynix, Samsung and Micron — to supply more LPDDR5X chips for the 2026 iPhone lineup.
More RAM will enable support for the entire suite of Apple Intelligence features
The iPhone 17 misses out on some new Apple Intelligence features in iOS 27 because it only packs 8GB of RAM. This includes more advanced on-device voice typing and more expressive Siri AI voices.
The extra RAM should ensure the iPhone 18 will support these features.
The iPhone 17 already delivers excellent value. Adding 50% more RAM without raising the price would make its successor an even easier recommendation.
And DigiTimes is not the first to predict an increase to 12GB of RAM for the base model iPhone 18. An Apple analyst said the same in the spring.
But the iPhone 18 will reportedly launch later than usual. The iPhone 18 Pro and foldable iPhone will seemingly debut in September this year, with the non-Pro iPhone 18 launching alongside the iPhone 18e in Q1 2027.
