This huge iPhone 17 upgrade may only be made for the Max

According to a new leak on Chinese social network Weibo, the iPhone 17 is getting a massive memory upgrade to help it cope with the demands of Apple Intelligence – but a respected industry analyst says that the real story is slightly more complicated. The upgrade is coming, but only to one of the iPhone 17 models: the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

That's according to Ming-Chi Kuo, in a detailed post on X. According to Kuo, the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Slim and iPhone SE 4 will all be getting 8GB of RAM, up from the 6GB in the current iPhone 15 range; the Pro Max will be the only model with 12GB. That's partly to differentiate the highest-spec iPhone from the rest of the range. "Enhanced on-device AI capabilities will likely be a major selling point for the iPhone 17 Pro Max," Kuo says.

What to expect from the iPhone 17 Pro Max

Kuo says that there's another big upgrade coming to the iPhone 17 Pro Max: an upgraded cooling system. While the other 2025 iPhone models will be sticking with their existing graphite sheets for thermal management, the iPhone 17 Pro Max will be getting a significantly upgraded cooling system that utilises graphite and vapour chamber technology.

The focus on the Pro Max is because it's a big money maker for Apple. As Kuo points out, the iPhone Pro Max models currently account for nearly 40% of all new iPhone shipments, making it "the most significant contribution to Apple's revenue and profit among hardware products." That's a formula Apple doesn’t want to mess with, so it's very likely that the iPhone Pro Max will continue to deliver higher specifications than even the iPhone Pro.

Kuo's post appears to be yet more confirmation that Apple intends to replace the iPhone Plus with a more expensive iPhone Slim, possibly called iPhone Air. That will be even more expensive than the Pro Max, according to multiple reports, but it won't be as high specification.