iOS 18: These iPhones may not support some AI features

Apple is planning an AI overhaul in iOS 18, but some of the new features likely won’t work on older iPhones, even if they appear on the hardware compatibility list for the new operating system.

Apple’s initial AI roadmap for iOS 18 is said to consist of two parts: basic AI functions that are processed on the device and advanced functions that require a connection to Apple’s servers.

And at the heart of these features is a redesigned Siri. To do this, Apple engineers had to redesign the core Siri software using the Large Language Model (LLM), the algorithm that powers generative AI.

accordingly BloombergMark Gurman This allows Siri to open specific documents, organize notes into folders, delete an email, summarize an article, email a web link, and more. Apple reportedly plans to use artificial intelligence to analyze what people do on their devices to automatically enable these features.

Apple’s LLM software is expected to handle core AI tasks and run entirely on the device. In other words, the model runs on the iPhone processor, not the cloud. It’s unclear what the underlying task parameters are, but LLM contains code that determines whether a request can be processed on the device or whether Apple’s server is required.

Gorman SeaHowever, in most cases, an iPhone 15 Pro or newer is required to take advantage of the device’s AI features. Meanwhile, rumors suggest that iOS 18 will be compatible with the same iPhone models as iOS 17. Combining the two reports, we should expect the next iPhone models to run iOS 18 but not support Apple’s on-device AI features:

iPadOS 18 and macOS 15 are expected to share many of the same AI features, and Gorman says that Macs and iPads will need at least one M1 chip to get AI features on devices. In other words, Apple’s silicon-powered Macs are required for on-device AI in macOS 15 (with the exception of Intel Macs), while anything older than the fifth-generation iPad Pro won’t support on-device AI features in iPadOS. 18.

While it’s not entirely clear which hardware factor is the primary requirement for Apple’s on-device AI technology, it’s worth noting that the standard (unsupported) iPhone 15 model has 6GB of RAM, while the supported Pro models have 8GB of RAM. Similarly, all Apple silicon iPads and Macs have at least 8 GB of memory. Even when scaled to narrow use cases, LLM programs require significant amounts of memory due to the sheer number of parameters involved, so Apple may face hardware limitations on its devices.