Apple will allegedly offer both the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max with a minimum 256GB of storage, doing away with the 128GB starting option on its smaller Pro model for the first time.
Currently, Apple’s 6.1-inch iPhone 15 Pro starts at $999 and comes with the minimum 128GB of storage, while the 6.7-inch iPhone 15 Pro Max starts at $1,199 with a minimum 256GB of storage.
However, according to a post on X (Twitter) by LeaksApplePro, Apple will bump up the base storage of the upcoming iPhone 16 Pro to 256GB to match the minimum capacity of the larger iPhone 16 Pro Max, while the starting price of Apple’s smaller Pro model will remain at $999.
The X account has no recent track record for accurate Apple leaks or rumors, so we are filing this one under sketchy. Having said that, the claim is not outside the realm of possibility.
If Apple drops 128GB as the base on the iPhone 16 Pro, that will leave three Pro storage options across the board: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB.
It’s also worth noting that in 2018, Apple’s premium iPhone X came with 64GB, an entry-level storage tier that persisted in successive generations until the iPhone 13 in 2021, when Apple adopted 128GB as the new baseline. If Apple makes 256GB the new minimum across its premium devices, it could be settling into a pattern of doubling the minimum capacity every three years.
At the other end of the scale, a rumor in January out of Korea claimed that both iPhone 16 Pro models will be available with double the maximum storage capacity as the iPhone 15 Pro devices, increasing from 1TB to 2TB.
The maximum storage increase is said to be a result of Apple’s switch to higher-density Quad-Level Cell (QLC) NAND flash for higher storage models. Apple’s use of QLC NAND could allow Apple to fit more storage into a smaller space and it is less expensive than Triple-Level Cell (TLC) NAND, which current iPhones use.
This year’s iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are rumored to be getting bigger display sizes, increasing to 6.27- and 6.86-inches, respectively. For comparison, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are equipped with 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch displays, respectively. The new display sizes will be the largest ever for the iPhone, and should also increase the physical space for internal components and parts.