Only the two most powerful iPhone models at the moment will support Apple Intelligence. But why will your iPhone, which will nevertheless be entitled to iOS 18, be deprived of all these AI functions?
Announced at WWDC 2024, Apple Intelligence is expected to introduce new features based on artificial intelligence on Apple products. Problem is, if all iPad and Mac models with an M1 chip or higher will be compatible with Apple Intelligence, very few iPhones will be. Only the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max officially support this new feature, pending the release of the iPhone 16 series.
Many iPhone users will therefore be left behind, and we know more about the reasons for this situation. In a talk show hosted by John Gruber (the full video is available at the end of the article), three Apple executives provided explanations for this lack of support for current models.
Insufficient hardware for Apple Intelligence
John Giannandrea, head of Apple’s machine learning branch, says that running a language model locally requires a lot of resources. “You could, in theory, run these models on a very old device, but it would be so slow that it wouldn’t be useful”, he specifies. Craig Federighi, director of software engineering, adds that each new feature of the iPhone is designed to be integrated into as many models as possible, but that in this case, there were too strong hardware constraints. He believes that having managed to run Apple Intelligence on a smartphone is already “a pretty extraordinary thing”.
The A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max has a 16-core neural engine, which can be twice as efficient as that of the A16 chip in the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus. The A17 Pro SoC is capable of handling up to 35 trillion operations per second, enabling it to perform machine learning operations efficiently. RAM is another factor to take into account: an iPhone with only 6 GB of RAM would have difficulty supporting Apple Intelligence.
Greg Joswiak, marketing manager, refutes that this is a ploy to sell new iPhones. Moreover, iOS 18 will bring its share of new features outside of AI. In addition, certain iPads and Macs that are several years old, but efficient enough to benefit from Apple Intelligence, are compatible.
Source: MacRumors