As we wait for our first official look at iOS 18 — it should be next week when Apple previews the new iPhone software at WWDC 2024 — one rumor in particular has stood out to me. This isn't a laundry list of AI features that are apparently coming to your iPhone via this software update. Rather, the part that caught my attention was the suggestion that Apple plans to ensure that most AI features run on your iPhone, rather than using cloud servers for additional processing. This sounded appealing to me from both a performance and privacy standpoint.
As it turns out, that's not really the full story.
Oh, some features will remain entirely on your iPhone. But there are others that will need to be offloaded to the cloud, no matter how much Apple wants to keep things focused on the iPhone. And the number of capabilities available on the device can be extremely limited, depending on which iPhone you're using.
Bloomberg's Mark Gorman has the latest details on Apple's AI plans for iOS 18, especially when it comes to the revamped Siri personal assistant that will be at the heart of many of these new features. But the part that stood out to me was Gorman's observation: “As part of [iOS 18] After rollout, more basic AI tasks will be processed on the devices themselves, while more advanced capabilities will be handled by cloud computing.”
This is a bit of a change from what we've heard about the on-device capabilities before. And while that doesn't make iOS 18 any less exciting, it does make me wonder how similar the experiences will be across different iPhones.
Which iPhones can run on-device AI?
On-device AI is appealing for a few reasons. First, if something lives on your device, you and you alone can see it – even Apple won't know what you're using AI for. In an age where you can't help but feel like you're constantly being tracked, this is reassuring. In addition, on-device AI will handle tasks much faster than if you had to send your queries to the cloud, process it, and then send the answers back to you. On-device AI is the better way — if your device has the hardware to handle it.
As Gorman explains it, iOS 18 will be able to figure out what is core work and what needs to be handled on the cloud. For older phones, that might be too much — the report claims that many of iOS 18's on-device features will require the A17 chipset or better.
Put another way, this means you'll have to have an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max to take full advantage of the on-device AI in iOS 18. It doesn't even have the power of last year's iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus. Through the A16 bionic chips – will meet the processing needs. It's also safe to say that the iPhone 16 lineup won't have any issues with on-device AI, as all of these phones are expected to feature the new A18 chipsets.
It's not uncommon for older phones to miss out on some iOS enhancements. For example, iOS 17 added gesture-based visual effects to FaceTime calls, but you need at least an iPhone 12 to use this capability. In the case of on-device AI in iOS 18, though, it seems so. much more The phones are on the outside looking in, especially if the iOS 18 compatibility rumors are true and this year's update is working on devices that can run iOS 17. And the iPhone XS Max that came out in 2019.
What we need to hear from Apple
A cynic might argue that this is Apple hoping to use iOS updates to upgrade iPhones in an era where people are increasingly reluctant to hold on to their current handsets. are Even if that was the primary motivation — and I don't think it is — I'm not looking to sell Apple any more iPhones. They have a multi-billion dollar business to run. But some in the WWDC audience will be disappointed to hear what is and isn't available to them if they choose to keep the same phone.
Disappointment isn't a deal-killer, although it looks like the AI features will be available for older iPhones — it's just that many of them will need the cloud to work. So it will be up to Apple to figure out what that means. In the past, when it comes to new iOS features that don't work on older devices, Apple has relegated that information to the fine print of its preview pages. It won't fly this time: users should know what's on the device and what's being offloaded to the cloud, and Apple should make it clear how that affects performance.
Apple will want to be upfront about the privacy implications of cloud-based AI features and what it's going to do to keep user data under lock and key. To that end, Gorman's report says Apple plans to rely on secure enclaves in Mac chips powering cloud servers to protect privacy. Apple also reportedly has no plans to create user profiles and will release a report detailing how it stores AI-generated information.
It sounds promising, but I'm the kind of person who needs Tim Cook standing in front of the key deck to understand that something is expected to happen. The good news is that we'll get to know how the AI features will work on the old and new iPhones in no time.