If you once decided to pay a little more to have an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max, congratulations, when it is available, you will be able to run the new Apple Intelligence features. But if, on the other hand, you stayed with the iPhone 15 or 15 Plus, you will not suffer the same luck. Are you wondering why the base models have been discriminated against? Well, the analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has been in charge of reveal the real reason.
And not, It doesn’t seem to be related to the A16 or A17 Pro. The analyst himself found it curious that Apple did support the M1 processors in iPads and Macs, but not the iPhone 15 chip which is still considerably powerful.
In fact, he confirmed that the A16 chip can handle up to 17 billion operations per second (TOPS)while the M1 remains in 11 billion. That is, the processor intended for Macs and iPads is less capable in raw power, but it supports Apple Intelligence, something that the iPhone 15 chip does not boast of.
Therefore, Kuo claims that the processor doesn’t make a difference When we talk about Apple Intelligence, the limiter is somewhere else. Where? According to him, in the DRAM memory 6 GB of the iPhone 15 and 15 Plus, which is lower than the 8 GB that accompany the M1. This last amount is also what is available in the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max models.
“After compression, approximately 0.7 to 1.5 GB of DRAM must be reserved at any time to run Apple Intelligence”
Words by Ming-Chi Kuo
That is, these 2GB RAM that differentiate the iPhone 15 from the iPhone 15 Pro and products with the M1 chip, would be responsible for leaving Apple Intelligence out of plan for all smartphones below the 15 Pro. The A16 processor seems to be capable, but volatile memory is what would have imposed the barrier.
Now, no one can assure that this decision has been taken exclusively by RAM memory and there is no commercial interest involved. Apple is an expert at this, so if you have an iPhone 15 you can thank the marketing-sales department and also its 6 GB of RAM.
The ‘Pro’ iPhones will need more RAM to run the future Apple Intelligence
In his analysis, Kuo also mentions that the current Apple Intelligence language model uses 3 billion parameters, but that this figure will increase soon with the second model they launch. According to him, it will have up to 7 billion parameterswhich will force the company to increase the amount of RAM on your iPhone.
If DRAM is the true limit of Apple Intelligence, the company’s future devices they will leave the 8 GB of RAM aside to integrate more quantity. That is, the iPhone 16 Pro or iPhone 17 Pro could include 12 or 16 GB of RAM with the sole intention of executing artificial intelligence functions.
