Everyone’s eyes have been on Apple’s introduction of Apple Intelligence at WWDC 2024, especially when the company limited support to only the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. In an attempt to give answers to many questions asking why advanced AI capabilities were not given to the standard iPhone 15 or other older models, Apple’s AI lead dedicated time to share an explanation about this regard, along with leading analysts.
Apple Intelligence is a bundle of AI capabilities within iOS 18 that includes audio transcription, SMS and notification summaries, and emoji generation. Backed by a large language model that processes data locally on the device, these deliver advanced protection for protecting user data. However, AI data is locally processed, involving the extensive use of computational resources, in particular, memory.
A17 Pro chip and 8GB of RAM are noted in the iPhone 15 Pro variants, while the regular iPhone 15 variants go with an A16 chip and 6GB of RAM. Apple Intelligence needs a minimum of 2Gb free DRAM to work well, which it will get only on devices running with 8GB RAM. Of the 6GB RAM, the A16 chip is mostly consumed by other processes, leaving very little for AI tasks. This memory constraint is what essentially makes Apple Intelligence available only on Pro models.
Basically, the efficiency of Apple’s AI means that it runs—in spite of its high computational demand—even on devices equipped with an A17 Pro chip or, at least, the M1 chip. The M1 chip, although less powerful if using TOPS as a consideration against the A16 chip, has an enough memory capacity for the AI functions.
This move comes to support Apple’s philosophy of sustaining performance and efficiency in AI-based applications. Though many believe this exclusivity may drive customers’ purchases toward Pro models, the technical limitations explained above minutely clarify this decision. With its high-tech AI capabilities—baked into iOS 18 via Apple Intelligence,, it gets quite clear just how far Apple has been working to enrich user experiences without affecting data privacy and high-performance standards.
This could be a capability that Apple may build on and extend to other models in the future when new devices with higher memory come in. But for now, the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max are the only ones to sport Apple’s newest AI technologies.
