Apple’s two cheaper 2027 iPhones look set to land below what the rumor mill had been promising. In a post on X on Friday, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e will ship with 9GB of RAM, not the 12GB that earlier leaks pointed to. Kuo dropped a significant update on X.com today, revising his outlook on how much memory the lower-end iPhone 18 models featuring the A20 chip will carry.
It’s still a bump over the current phones, just a small one. The A20 chip will use a 1.5GB by 6 dies layout for a total of 9GB, instead of the 2GB by 4 dies that gets the iPhone 17 to 8GB. One extra gig, by way of a slightly odd six-die arrangement.
Why it dropped from 12 to 9 is the part worth paying attention to. Kuo’s report ties the decision to the global memory chip shortage that has been squeezing manufacturers for months, the same crunch that already pushed Apple to raise Mac and iPad prices earlier in the week. Outgoing CEO Tim Cook described the spike in memory and storage costs as a “hundred-year flood.” Rather than swallow the cost of 12GB across the whole lineup or push the launch back, Apple appears to be holding the line at 9GB on the budget phones and keeping the full allocation for the expensive ones.
That leaves the base iPhone 18 in an awkward spot. Apple has set 12GB as the minimum for its most demanding on-device Apple Intelligence tasks, which is why the 8GB iPhone 17 and even the old 6GB iPhone 15 were locked out of certain features. At 9GB, the iPhone 18 clears the old floor but sits under the AI ceiling, and nobody outside Apple knows yet which iOS 27 features will actually run on it. All we currently know is that 8GB phones can’t run the on-device models and 12GB phones can, and where the cutoff sits in between is unclear.
The pricier models aren’t affected. The iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, and the foldable iPhone, all powered by the A20 Pro chip, are still expected to carry 12GB (1.5GB by 8 dies), matching the current iPhone 17 Pro. Those three arrive first, in fall 2026, while the iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e follow several months later.
There’s a bit more to the budget-phone trimming, too. Kuo’s note fits a wider pattern of Apple cutting iPhone 18 specs to manage costs, after a Weibo leaker earlier reported manufacturing downgrades that bring the standard iPhone 18 closer to the 18e, with some parts reportedly shared between them. Supply-chain reporting has pegged the A20 chip itself at as much as $280 per unit, roughly 80% higher than the previous generation, which goes some way to explaining why Apple is counting every gigabyte.
As always with Kuo, treat it as a well-sourced prediction rather than a spec sheet. His Apple supply chain hit rate is good, but none of this is official until Apple says so, and the phones are still the better part of a year out.
Kuo expects both around March or April 2027, after the Pro models and the foldable launch in fall 2026.
9GB, according to Kuo, up from 8GB on the iPhone 17. The iPhone 18 Pro, Pro Max, and foldable are expected to keep 12GB.
Unclear. Apple’s stated minimum for its heaviest on-device AI is 12GB, so a 9GB phone may not get everything. No confirmation either way yet.
