Apple’s artificial intelligence will soon arrive in beta versions of iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia, but only a portion of current iPhone owners will be able to try it out. The reason? To do this you will need an iPhone 15 Pro or an iPhone 15 Pro Max. The decision does not seem arbitrary at all.
The NPU is the key. Unless you have one of those two models, you will not be able to access the functions that Apple offers with its new artificial intelligence system. The company has explained that in order to take advantage of Apple Intelligence it is necessary to have chips with a sufficiently powerful NPU (Neural Processing Unit). The M1 and later have that power, but of Apple’s mobile chips, only the latest A17 Pro have that capacity according to the company.
Why not in the previous ones? Apple does not explain exactly the reason why you cannot enjoy these options on the iPhone 15/Plus, for example. The A16 Bionic are truly remarkable chips, but the AI functions probably don’t have enough headroom in them to run smoothly, and here Apple has preferred to avoid complaints about disappointing experiences. The other option, of course, is that they want to use this requirement as an argument to sell more iPhones in the future.
Your iPhone 13 is no longer useful. The funny thing is that iPhones can normally access ChatGPT and other chatbots because everything runs in the cloud. This suggests that Apple could simply activate queries on its servers directly for less powerful iPhones that are not capable of running the local model. As analyst Michael Gartenberg points out in Wired, “I suspect this is the opportunity Apple has been waiting for to tell you that the iPhone 13 is no longer good enough.”
Either you change your iPhone or nothing. This will mean that those who want to access Apple Intelligence options will have to purchase either the iPhone 15 Pro/Max, or wait for the company’s future models that appear from now on. If the same trend as in recent years is followed, the future iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus will have the Apple A17 Pro, which will allow even these “basic” models to access these functions.
Sales will go up. This is according to Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, who explained that these AI options “should change Cupertino’s growth trajectory: they will drive an AI-powered iPhone update cycle starting with iPhone 16.”
But not everywhere. The deployment of these functions will be gradual. Initially they will only be available for US users and in English, which means that possible sales boost may not be as high. Unless, of course, in the rest of the world users also buy it with the expectation that Apple Intelligenge will quickly reach other regions and languages. Apple has not specified when it will do so, but it has confirmed that this is certainly the plan.
Perfect moment. If that prediction comes true, it will do so precisely at the time when Apple needed it most. iPhone sales have stagnated in recent months, and took an unusual hit in the first quarter of the year. As those responsible for the company explained, 10% fewer iPhones were sold than in the same period of the previous year, the largest drop in sales since the summer of 2020.
AI to the rescue. The arguments for changing mobile phones have not been so powerful for a long time. With hardly any changes in their designs, manufacturers hid mainly behind new processors and cameras. People could extend the life of their smartphones, but AI can now become that “killer app” that can boost sales again. That’s certainly what Apple probably hopes.
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