As always, there have been constant leaks about the iPhone 16 even before Apple's autumn product launch event.

Today, according to the latest report from TrendForce, although the increase in memory prices over the past year may lead to higher production costs for Apple's new phones, considering the overall decline in the smartphone market, it is expected that Apple will continue to adopt a cautious pricing strategy, and the pricing of the four new models is expected to be the same as the iPhone 15 series.

However, in order to boost sales of the new phones while maintaining profitability, the two models of the iPhone 16 Pro series may follow the pricing strategy of last year's Pro Max, which is to increase the starting capacity to 256GB to downplay the impression of price increases. This is because these models come with periscope lenses, which have a cost difference.

TrendForce points out that even if the prices remain the same, consumer habits such as taking and storing a large number of high-quality photos and videos, downloading music and large games, and frequently installing applications will continue to drive up the demand for average capacity. Considering Apple's pricing strategy for capacity upgrades and the procurement cost of NAND Flash, Apple may obtain greater profits from this.

On the other hand, Apple Intelligence, as a major highlight of the iPhone 16 series, may become an important source of profit for Apple. Neil Shah, partner at Counterpoint Research, suggests that due to the high investment cost in artificial intelligence, Apple may charge $10 to $20 for Apple Intelligence to provide more advanced AI functions.

Apple has put in a lot of effort for this. According to tech journalist Mark Gurman, Apple plans to make the Apple Intelligence platform an important part of iPhone sales in its stores this autumn, and has already started training retail employees on the functionality.

In terms of hardware specifications, TrendForce predicts that the four new models of the iPhone 16 series to be released by Apple will fully adopt the brand new A18 and A18 Pro processors with TSMC's 3nm process, which may break the tradition of using previous generation processors for standard models in the past two years. This change is speculated to be related to cost considerations for the processors.

In terms of panels, the iPhone 16 series will fully adopt AMOLED panels, with the Pro models being the first to use BRS (Border Reduction Structure) technology, which is expected to achieve ultra-thin bezels. TrendForce also pointed out that the screen size of the two models in the iPhone 16 Pro series is slightly larger than the previous generation. In addition, although there were rumors that the refresh rate of the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus would be increased to 90Hz, it ultimately remains at 60Hz.

In terms of memory, in order to fully support Apple Intelligence features, the DRAM capacity of the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus will also be upgraded this year, meaning that all four new models will have LPDDR5X 8GB capacity.

Regarding the production volume of the new models, TrendForce stated that market expectations for Apple Intelligence increased after WWDC24, and with a low base year in 2023, it is estimated that the total output of the four new iPhone models in the second half of 2024 will reach 86.7 million units, with a year-on-year increase of nearly 8%.