According to supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e duo will have their RAM capacity increased to 9GB, up from 8GB on iPhone 17 and iPhone 17e.
In a new post, Mr. Kuo said that the addition of 1GB of RAM is to ensure that Apple Intelligence features continue to operate smoothly on these two models.
In the high-end segment, iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max and the folding phone model believed to be named iPhone Ultra will still be equipped with 12GB of RAM, similar to the iPhone 17 Pro line.
According to sources, Apple will launch iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max and iPhone Ultra around September this year. Meanwhile, iPhone 18, iPhone 18e and second-generation iPhone Air are expected to appear around March 2027.
Despite being upgraded to 9GB of RAM, iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e will still not support the two new Apple Intelligence features on iOS 27. Specifically, users will not be able to customize Siri's expressiveness and voice speed, and will also not be able to use the voice-to-text conversion feature with significantly improved accuracy.
The reason is that the Apple Intelligence model runs directly on the device, which powers these two features, requiring a minimum of 12GB of RAM.
In addition, Mr. Kuo said that the price of RAM and memory chips is at a high level due to supply shortages. This has caused Apple to increase the price of more than a dozen products last month.
Although iPhone prices have not been adjusted yet, many analysts predict that iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e may be 100 - 200 USD more expensive than the iPhone 17 generation.
