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In iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, Apple is introducing new personalized AI experiences called Apple Intelligence that use large-scale, on-device generative language models to improve the user experience across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
You’ll need Apple’s latest iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max models for these new AI features to work, but only Macs and iPads with M1 or newer chips support Apple Intelligence. Since this news emerged, many users have been asking why support is being dropped.
During a live talk show at WWDC 2024, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber asked Apple’s head of AI/machine learning John Giannandrea, head of marketing Greg Joswiak, and head of software engineering Craig Federighi the following questions:
Giannandrea: “Running these models at runtime is called inference, and inference on large language models is computationally very expensive, so it’s a combination of device bandwidth, the size of the Apple Neural Engine, and the power of the device that makes these models run fast enough to be of any practical use. In theory, even very old devices could run these models, but they would be so slow that they would be useless.
Gruber: So this isn’t a plan to sell a new iPhone?
Joswiak: “No, not at all. Otherwise, wouldn’t it have been wise to also bring in the latest iPads and Macs?”
Craig Federighi, Apple’s head of software engineering, said the company’s first approach when introducing a new feature is to find a way to bring it back to older devices as much as possible. But with Apple Intelligence, he added, “It takes hardware. To run a model of this power on an iPhone is pretty amazing.”
The iPhone 15 Pro models are powered by the A17 Pro chip, which packs a 16-core neural engine that’s up to twice as fast as the A16 chip found in the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, capable of performing around 35 trillion operations per second. Federighi suggested that RAM is another aspect of the system required for new AI features, so it may not be a coincidence that all devices compatible with Apple Intelligence have at least 8GB of RAM.
Despite this discontinuation, owners of older iPhones still have a lot to look forward to in Apple’s upcoming software updates. iOS 18 has several new features beyond Apple Intelligence, and all iPhones capable of running iOS 17 will be compatible with iOS 18. That includes the 2018 iPhone XR.
If you want to have Apple Intelligence in your pocket and don’t have an iPhone 15 or iPhone 15 Pro, you might want to wait for the iPhone 16 series, which is expected to be released when iOS 18 is released in the fall.
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