Here's why iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus can't run Apple Intelligence

Apple’s launch of AI features wasn’t a surprise as critics saw it coming for a long time. Of course, Apple had to catch up to the AI race and do it right. But unlike other manufacturers, who have made select AI features available on their older devices alongside their latest ones, Apple fully skipped the base iPhone 15 models from its list of AI-supported phones. Instead, Apple kept showing the AI tools available on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. And that was surprising for many iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus buyers as they may feel scammed. But there’s a probable reason why Apple didn’t announce AI features on the base iPhones, and in this article, we will tell that. Also Read: How To Create Instagram's Viral Vintage Saree AI Photo With ChatGPT And Google's Gemini Nano Banana: Prompt Here

Spoiler: iPhone 15’s A16 Bionic chipset is not the problem

Many think that the A17 Pro is the reason for the AI features on the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. While the chipset is responsible for many things, the DRAM is the underlying issue here, as per Ming-Chi Kuo, who’s an analyst with a pretty good track record. According to him, Apple’s A16 Bionic is perfectly capable of running AI features, but DRAM is the concern. Also Read: Albania Appoints World’s First AI Minister ‘Diella’ To Tackle Corruption: All Details

Apple iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus have 6GB of DRAM, whereas, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max have 8GB of DRAM. The 2GB less RAM may sound like an imbecile reason to make, but there’s a theory. Also Read: Elon Musk’s xAI Fires 500 Employees? Report Suggests Major Layoffs

Apple’s M1-powered iPads and MacBooks support AI features, despite having 11 TOPs (Trillion Operations Per Second). The A16 Bionic, on the other hand, has 17 TOPs, making it capable. But the M1 has 8GB of DRAM support, which the A16 Bionic lacks. Not just the base iPhone 15s have 6GB RAM, but even the older iPhone 14 Pros have 6GB RAM and the same A16 Bionic chipset. That said, Apple also cannot offer AI features to Pros from last year.

That’s the most probable reason why Apple isn’t giving its AI features to base iPhones of this year or older Pros. But the question here is, would 2GB of less DRAM make AI features wonky on the base or the older iPhone 14 Pro? There’s a theory for that too.

Apple’s current on-device AI features are based on the 3B LLM model, however, Apple is expected to use the 7B LLM model in the near future. The latter will require more DRAM to operate, which means iPhones with less RAM may not allow the model to run like it should. That said, the probable reason comes down to DRAM in all ways.

Apple is expected to announce its iPhone 16 series in less than four months. The base iPhone 16s might have 8GB of RAM, which means they could some with AI features out of the box. This will also benefit Apple to push its base models as AI devices over the iPhone 15.