iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, Could Feature A 12GB RAM Bump For More Multitasking Headroom, Better Gaming And On-Device AI Capabilities

Apple's iPhone design has become a little stagnant over the past few years. The company only enlarged the cameras, played with the build material, and called it a redesign. It seems that engineers and designers at Apple are hard at work to bring about a major change. With that said, a new report has emerged that shines a light on the potential launch of the iPhone 17 'Slim' next year with an entirely new design and form factor.

Qualcomm is expected to switch to its custom Oryon cores when it officially announces the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. A company executive claimed that the flagship SoC would be unveiled in October, making it the first silicon from the San Diego firm to transition to in-house CPU designs completely. However, this shift could cost Qualcomm’s partners a hefty sum, as one tipster claims that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 will be expensive, and phone makers will have to evaluate the overall configuration of their devices to sell them at competitive prices.

The 13-inch M4 iPad Pro measures just 5.1mm in thickness and is marketed as Apple’s thinnest product yet. However, the obvious concern that potential buyers would have is how durable it would be over long-term use, and while Apple’s executives have attempted to put people’s worries to rest by stating that a protective cowling provides structural rigidity to the latest tablet, a new bend test reveals a different story. However, what is interesting to note is that the larger iPad Pro breaks from the charging position, not from the center, as Apple added the ‘central spine’ there to increase the slate’s durability.

Apple has maintained its iron grip in the ARM chipset space, particularly in the single-core department, when it was reported that the M4 completely dominated the Geekbench 6 charts. Unfortunately, some individuals are just not satisfied with these results and have gone to great lengths to ensure that the latest iPad Pro models attain a record that will take a while to be broken, and that is achieving 4,000 points in the benchmarking application. As for how Apple’s latest flagship tablet achieved this figure, all it took was a little help from liquid nitrogen.

The latest 11-inch and 13-inch M4 iPad Pro models measure 5.3mm and 5.1mm, respectively, making them the thinnest Apple products ever. The company likely attained this by switching over to Tandem OLED technology, which does not need its own backlighting and has individual pixels, allowing Apple to reduce the overall thickness. However, while there is no question that the latest iPad Pro models are design marvels, their extra sleekness can result in another ‘bendgate’ controversy, but a company executive has assured potential buyers that they have little to worry about.

The latest 11-inch and 13-inch M4 iPad Pro models are equipped with Tandem OLED technology, making them the first consumer products to be equipped with such panels. The obvious benefits include higher brightness and richer colors, and perhaps the biggest perk of using an OLED apart from the battery life improvements is the longer lifespan of the displays. However, users may not appreciate that the addition of Tandem OLED actually results in worse battery life compared to the M1 version with mini-LED, at least according to the latest tests.

Google is expected to unveil the Tensor G4 later this year for the Pixel 9 lineup, and just like its previous releases, the company is likely sticking with Samsung as its foundry partner. However, next year, the advertising giant is said to take a different direction, with its Pixel 10 range apparently featuring a 3nm SoC from TSMC. To help with the transition, Google is rumored to have expanded its Taiwanese R&D center, where it is expected to collaborate closely with the semiconductor giant to produce its best silicon to date.

The Galaxy S24 family shipped with Samsung’s ‘Galaxy AI,’ which is the company’s first AI-powered feature set that elevates the smartphone experience. So far, this addition has proven to be successful, as Samsung recently regained the top spot by beating Apple and becoming the largest smartphone vendor in Q1 2024. We expect to see more of these features added to the Galaxy S25 range next year, but ‘Battery AI’ is something that the company is rumored to introduce before it officially announces its 2025 flagship family.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 design was previously said to be finalized in April this year, with a target frequency of 4.00GHz and above. However, looking at Apple’s M4 and its high clock speeds that help the chipset attain a record-breaking single-core score, Qualcomm is rumored to introduce a chipset redesign with a new target frequency of 4.26GHz. This change is said to be made to take on Apple’s upcoming A18 and A18 Pro, which may also operate at higher frequencies to gain an edge against the competition.

The ‘less than stellar’ demand for the Apple Vision Pro has caused shipment estimates to drop to 400,000 to 450,000 units for 2024, a massive drop compared to the previous 800,000 estimates. Consumers are discouraged from making the AR headset their daily driver thanks to its ludicrous starting price of $3,499, and even though Apple intends to launch the device overseas, its ‘expensive’ problem is yet to be addressed. Fortunately, the company might overcome this hurdle with the Apple Vision Pro 2, with a rumor claiming that the successor will have a starting price of $1,500 and will add two new suppliers, Samsung and SeeYa, to the list.

A few rumors have clamored that Samsung intends to keep several areas of the Galaxy S25 Ultra unaltered compared to the Galaxy S24 Ultra, but the specifications bit might be another story. One tipster mentions that the Korean giant will finally introduce a RAM upgrade to its top-end flagship in 2025, but the internal storage might not change.

An early look at the M4’s performance did not deliver the best positive first impression because we believed that Apple lowered the clock speeds to achieve better efficiency. However, we are pleasantly surprised by the latest results, as Apple’s new SoC powering the 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models runs circles around the M2, handily beats M3, and zips past the M3 Pro and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite, which are two chipsets occupying a higher performance bracket. Let us look at the latest scores and see what impressed us so much.