Apple could make the iPhone 16 Pro slower in the name of cutting costs

If you're already casting your eye forward and waiting for Apple to announce the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max, you aren't alone. There ar plenty of iPhone owners who skipped the iPhone 15 Pro models with an eye to what will come next, but there's some bad news if you're also someone who likes to get as much storage as possible after it was claimed that the 1TB model will be slower than normal. And the reason is a strange one.

While the 1TB iPhone 16 Pro will have the same A18 Pro chip inside - assuming previous reports and leaks are correct, of course - that particular model could be slower than those with less storage. That's according to a new DigiTimes report which claims that Apple will potentially switch that model to Wuad-Level Cell (QLC) NAND flash memory. Such memory is cheaper than the Triple-Level Cell (TLC) NAND memory that is currently used in Apple's 1TB models.

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The move to the different memory type will not only make the chips cheaper but also smaller which will likely help with the limited space available in the iPhone 16 Pro. It's also possible that the switch could open the door to a future 2TB model, too.

However, while cheaper and smaller the QLC storage is also slower with less impressive read and write speeds than the more costly TLC memory. However, it's possible that Apple could find a way to work around the speed difference via software trickery, but that's something that we won't know the outcome of until we see these things for real.

Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 16 Pro models alongside the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus at an event in September if previous years are any indication.