Apple Intelligence is leaving hundreds of millions of iPhone owners out in the cold – here’s why

At the end of Apple’s keynote at WWDC 2004, as Apple was wrapping up its segment on the new Apple Intelligence features, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi stood in front of a graphic that read, “Artificial Intelligence for the Rest of Us.” While it was a nice reference to Mac’s original slogan – “a computer for the rest of us”, in case you forgot – perhaps it would be more accurate to say “Artificial intelligence for the rest of us… although probably not you.”

This is a reflection of Apple Intelligence’s system requirements, which are somewhat restrictive, especially for the iPhone. While iOS 18 will run on devices released in 2019 and later, Apple Intelligence features on iPhone are compatible with Apple phones dating back… again, nine months. And even then, not every iPhone released last fall can join the party.

Specifically, Apple Intelligence will require an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max. The iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus released at the same time do not have enough processing power to handle these new capabilities.

So if you’re like me and use an older iPhone – or even not that old in the case of the iPhone 14 or iPhone 15 – you can’t help but feel a little dejected at the end of Apple’s keynote.

Yes, Apple Intelligence sounds promising – the new Siri may be worth the price, and I’d like to see if the promised writing and imaging tools fit my workflow (or better yet, enhance it). But unless I get my hands on one of two specific iPhone models soon, these features will be out of my reach.

Apple is looking forward to Apple Intelligence

iPhones with Apple Intelligence features

(Image: Apple)

Apple’s hands are somewhat tied here. Faced with the choice of offering a lower-quality product or making sure its entry into AI would deliver more value, even at the cost of cutting off more users, it chose the latter approach. And as talented as the engineers employed by Apple are, they can’t go back in time and enhance the neural capabilities of the system on the iPhone 13 chip. (For the same reason, I’m not sure someone twisted Apple’s arm and forced it to put A16 Bionic chips in the standard iPhone 15 last fall instead of the more powerful A17 silicon that powers the Pro models.)

Additionally, it speaks to Apple’s vision for Apple Intelligence as a way to move the company forward, rather than modifying its current offerings with new features. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman put it more succinctly in his WWDC preview column a few days ago: “The move into artificial intelligence isn’t just about Apple’s current offerings — it will help create the next generation of hardware products.”

That’s good news for Future Phil when it comes time to buy his next Apple device, but Phil in his current iteration finds it pretty thin mush.

This could also be part of Apple’s calculations as it will sell new iPhones in the fall. Given that all of these devices will likely feature A18 chips – yes, even the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus – this will increase the number of Apple devices supporting Apple Intelligence features and allow more people to try out these new capabilities.

Apple Intelligence: Upgrade iPhone or Not?

Unofficial front and back renders of the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max

(Photo: MacRumors)

I’m just not sure I’ll be among them, not least to make sure I have a device with Apple Intelligence support. While I’d love to try Apple Intelligence if my current iPhone supported it, I’m not willing to pay at least $799 – which is reportedly the starting price of the iPhone 16 – for the privilege of testing things out.

As I said earlier, there are some impressive new tools available through Apple Intelligence, and one of them is a smarter version of Siri that better understands context. Features like creating photo galleries using text prompts are worth spending time on, and since I really like Magic Eraser when I use it on Pixel phones, I’m sure I’ll enjoy doing the same with Apple’s iteration of the same feature (which is called cleaning.)

But I would describe most of these features as “nice to try” rather than “must have”. And honestly, there are enough tools in Apple Intelligence to avoid that would discourage me from upgrading until I know more about how they work. Genmoji is a clever name, but I can’t imagine a scenario where I would have to generate custom emojis on the fly. To paraphrase the late PJ O’Rourke, I would rather hand over my car keys and a bottle of whiskey to teenagers than I would hand over my iPhone to OpenAI and its ChatGPT tool that will be integrated with the new Siri.

Perhaps I’ll sing something new when Apple Intelligence gets into the hands of users who actually have supported devices and can more reliably determine which of these features are truly game-changing. Of course, with reports that initial versions of AI features may be quite buggy, we may need some time to honestly evaluate Apple Intelligence – so much so that the likely iPhone 16 release date may pass before it appears consensus .

I don’t think the lack of broader Apple Intelligence support for devices should undermine Apple’s efforts to make its phones, tablets, and Macs smarter. Ultimately, it’s probably a smarter move for Apple to proceed this way. However, if you feel unenthusiastic about some of the changes Apple has announced – even if they’re exciting changes – that’s certainly understandable.