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We already know that not all iPhones will be equally intelligent. Apple is planning a significant AI overhaul with iOS 18, though some of the new features won’t work on all iPhones. The same thing is also true when it comes to iPad and Mac. Older devices could be left out of the revolution. Here are the ones.
Apple’s initial roadmap for iOS 18 reportedly includes two parts: basic AI capabilities that will be processed directly on the device and more advanced capabilities that will instead require communication with Apple’s servers.
At the center of these innovations is a completely redesigned version of Siri. Apple’s voice assistant, there’s no denying it, seems out of step with today’s chatbots, ChatGPT above all. For this reason, it is said that Apple had to rebuild the underlying Siri software, using advanced language models (LLM).
According to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, this will allow Siri to perform tasks like opening specific documents, organizing notes into folders, deleting emails, summarizing articles, sending links via email, and more.
AI on device
Apple’s advanced language model will handle what are considered basic AI tasks completely on-device, therefore without sending data to external servers, processing everything thanks to the iPhone’s processor. It is not clear what the criteria will be to define a task as basic, and which will instead require dialogue with Apple servers.
Which iPhones with AI
According to Gurman, the on-device AI capabilities they will mostly require an iPhone 15 Pro, or later models to work. Meanwhile, iOS 18 is rumored to be compatible with the same iPhone models that can run iOS 17.
Combining the two reports, the following iPhone models are expected to support iOS 18, but not some of Apple’s on-device AI features:
– iPhone 15
– iPhone 15 Plus
– iPhone 14
– iPhone 14 Plus
– iPhone 14 Pro
– iPhone 14 Pro Max
– iPhone 13
– iPhone 13 mini
– iPhone 13 Pro
– iPhone 13 Pro Max
– iPhone 12
– iPhone 12 mini
– iPhone 12 Pro
– iPhone 12 Pro Max
– iPhone 11
– iPhone 11 Pro
– iPhone 11 Pro Max
– iPhone
– iPhone XS Max
– iPhone
– iPhone SE (2nd generation)
– iPhone SE (3rd generation)
Which iPads and Macs will be compatible
iPadOS 18 and macOS 15 are expected to share many of the same AI features as iOS 18, with Gurman saying that Macs and iPads will need at least the M1 chip for on-device AI capabilities.
In other words, on-device generative intelligence in macOS 15 will require Macs with Apple Silicon, excluding Macs with Intel processors, while all iPads prior to the fifth generation iPad Pro will not support on-device AI features in iPadOS 18.
What hardware does Apple AI require
Although it is not entirely clear what the determining hardware factor is to make a device compatible with Apple’s on-device AI, it is important to note that the standard iPhone 15 models, which seem currently excluded, have 6GB of RAM, while Pro models have 8GB.
Likewise, all iPads and Macs with Apple Silicon have at least 8GB of RAM. It seems, therefore, that the amount of RAM requested by Apple is precisely 8 GB.
This is because, even with low workload, advanced language models require a lot of memory due to the large number of parameters involved. This may be the point where Apple runs into hardware limitations of its unsupported devices.
To find out all the news about iOS 18 you can start from this address.
