Generative AI for few iPhones: Apple management provides background information
Apple's head of AI, John Giannandrea, has given details of why only certain iPhones can be used for Apple Intelligence. It's not just down to marketing.
(Image: BadPixma / Shutterstock)
When Apple Intelligence is launched in the fall, Apple's generative AI and improved Siri will only be available for a few devices - at least in the mobile sector. Only the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max will be supported – and presumably the four new iPhone 16 models expected in September. Apple is less stingy when it comes to Macs and wants to support all Apple Silicon models from the M1 upwards. Apple Intelligence has not commented on why it is making such high demands on the hardware.
Older iPads and Macs can play along
According to Apple's head of AI, John Giannandrea, the main problem is that older neural engine modules in Apple chips are not powerful enough. The local language models that Apple is planning could theoretically also run on "very old" devices. "But that would be so slow that it wouldn't be useful." It's not about selling more new iPhones. "No, not at all. Otherwise, we would have been smart enough to just take our latest iPads and Macs too, wouldn't we?"
In the past, Apple did tend to reserve certain high-end features for the very latest iPhones. But key innovations were also given to devices that were several years old. However, with the slow rollout of Apple Intelligence, this no longer seems to be the strategy.
All iPhone 16 models ready for Apple Intelligence
In addition to the newer Neural Engine, Apple apparently also sees a higher memory requirement. The standard iPhone 15 models with their old A16 SoC have 6 GB of RAM instead of 8 GB. According to reports from the USA, Apple is said to have decided months ago that at least 8 GB of RAM is required to use Apple Intelligence. This in turn fits in with the support of M1 SoCs in the Mac and iPad, which all have at least 8 GB available. The fact that Apple ultimately considers the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus to be "very old" is likely to annoy buyers of the devices released last fall.
Apple is now reportedly planning to install different versions of the new A18 SoC in the iPhone 16 - a standard version and a Pro version for the iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. However, all of them will be compatible with Apple Intelligence as standard. There is still the political factor: in addition to the fact that Apple will probably not be able to support more languages than US English until 2025, EU regulation could prevent the company from quickly expanding its offering worldwide. At least that's what Apple fears. However, critics consider the argument to be a pretext and believe that it is mainly used to put pressure on Brussels.
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