iOS 18: Most iPhones will not get access to new ‘Apple Intelligence’ features

Apple has released one of its most substantial upgrades to the iPhone in years – but most devices will not actually be able to get it.

The new tools, grouped under the name “Apple Intelligence”, use machine learning to give the iPhone new capabilities. The system cantering information together from across the device, for instance, and then use that to answer questions through Siri.

They will arrive within iOS 18, the new operating system for the iPhone. That was announced during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference this week, and will be released to the public later this year.

iOS 18 itself is compatible with everyone phone that can run the current iOS 17. It is available for all iPhones since the XR and XS, which were released in 2018.

The new Apple Intelligence tools, however, have different compatibility requirements.

Those features will only be available to people with the latest iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. Even the iPhone 15 – Apple’s newest device, released in September and still on sale, will not get those features.

Apple said the is restriction is the result of the vast amounts of computing power required to run the artificial intelligence models that underpin the new features.

“The core foundational models behind these experiences require a huge amount of compute,” said Apple’s senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, John Giannandrea. “It’s the amount of computer that they require that actually provides that limitation.”

The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max have a more high-powered chip than that found in the case version of the iPhone 15.

Apple is expected to release a new version of the iPhone in September this year, around the same time iOS 18 becomes available to the public. All of those new iPhone models will presumably be able to get the new features.