“It’s hard to believe, but the Apple iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have been available for sale for about four months now,” Ashraf Eassa writes for The Motley Fool. “Although these phones aren’t even midway through their respective life cycles, the Apple rumor mill never sleeps, particularly as investors are always eager to learn what might be next in Apple’s iPhone pipeline. Just a few days ago, Taiwan’s TechNews reported on what might be the first truly believable iPhone 6s rumor.”
“According to the TechNews report, Apple’s next iPhone will pack 2 gigabytes of next-generation LPDDR4 memory, rather than the 1 gigabyte of LPDDR3 memory found in the iPhone 6/6 Plus today,” Eassa writes. “That’s great news for iPhone customers, especially if Apple’s next iOS release — likely called iOS 9 — features more advanced multitasking features that takes advantage of the increased memory.”
“If Apple were to just move from 1 gigabyte of LPDDR3 to 2 gigabytes of LPDDR3 in the next-generation iPhone, this would lead, most likely, to a doubling of Apple’s memory costs. However, according to the TechNews report, LPDDR4 sells for a roughly 35% premium to LPDDR3. That means that if this rumor is true, Apple’s memory costs are going to go way up for the next-generation iPhone — by about a factor of 2.7 times,” Eassa writes. “Of course, I’m sure that with the volumes of LPDDR4 Apple will be buying, Apple may be able to negotiate a better deal than what a ‘typical’ customer might need to pay. However, even if Apple were to negotiate away the LPDDR4 ‘premium’ memory costs would still double for the next iPhone.”
Read more in the full article here.