The upcoming iPhone 17 ‘Air’ has been the most highly-anticipated iPhone model in years as it’s expected to be Apple’s thinnest iPhone ever, even besting out the iPhone 16 from over ten years ago. The iPhone 17 ‘Air’ is expected to replace the ‘Plus’ model after a few years of disappointing sales, and it’s also expected to sit between the standard and the Pro models.
So how much RAM can we expect from the iPhone 17 ‘Air’? Initially, rumors suggested it could come with 8GB of RAM, which is the same amount of memory across all iPhone 16 models, including the iPhone 16e. The year before, the iPhone 15 Pro models were the first to feature 8GB of RAM, which is the minimum requirement to support Apple Intelligence. Ming-Chi Kuo previously indicated that only the iPhone 17 Pro Max would receive an increase in RAM from 8GB to 12GB. However, according to his latest rumor, it looks like the mid-tier iPhone 17 ‘Air’, and consequently both iPhone 17 Pro models, will receive the same RAM bump as well. Kuo additionally reported that the base iPhone 17 may receive the same RAM increase, but only if supply chain shortages can be overcome, but Apple will make the final decision on the RAM amount for the said model by the end of next month.
Jumping to the future, Kuo expects the entire iPhone 18 lineup to feature 12GB of RAM standard. Having more RAM is always a huge benefit since it’ll give a lot of headroom for multitasking and Apple Intelligence. iPhone and iPad models with at least 8GB of RAM already support Apple Intelligence, which also prompted Apple to bump the base unified memory from 8GB to 16GB on all of the entry-level Macs, including the iPad Air.
