One of the particularities of Apple Intelligence is that, to respect the privacy of its users, it processes as much information as possible locally, directly on the user’s iPhone, iPad or Mac. But if this local operation has advantages, it also has some disadvantages. First of all, Apple’s technical choices mean that Apple Intelligence is only compatible with the iPhone 15 Pro, the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the iPhone 16 series models. But beyond that, Apple Intelligence also takes up a lot of space on the internal storage of the user’s device.
At launch, Apple Intelligence required 4 GB of free storage space. This makes sense, since in order to work locally, Apple Intelligence must store Apple’s AI models on the user’s devices. But unfortunately, when new AI features arrive, the storage space required by Apple Intelligence increases. And at the time of writing, Apple Intelligence only requires 4 GB of free storage space. According to our colleagues at 9to5Mac, after update 18.2, Apple requests 7 GB of free storage for Apple Intelligence.
This makes sense, however, given that the iOS 18.2 update includes quite a few new features based on artificial intelligence. For example, it is this update that brings the functionality that allows you to use ChatGPT on the Siri interface. iOS 18.2 also includes Genmoji (an emoji generator), as well as Visual Intelligence, an AI capable of analyzing images to answer user questions.
Other new features will still arrive
However, the storage space needed to run Apple Intelligence could increase further this year. Indeed, the firm plans to launch other AI features, including an improved version of Siri. And according to 9to5Mac, it’s entirely possible that adding more features could increase Apple Intelligence’s size to 10 GB.
Otherwise, we also remind you that Apple Intelligence is currently only available in English. However, the firm is already working on supporting other languages, including French. In addition, it has already announced that it will make Apple Intelligence available on iPhones and iPads in the European Union from April.
- Apple Intelligence works, in part, on the user’s device, to respect their privacy
- But this technical choice means that Apple’s AI is very bulky
- At launch, Apple Intelligence required 4 GB of free storage
- And currently Apple Intelligence requires 7 GB
- Furthermore, the arrival of new features will likely further increase the storage required to use Apple Intelligence
