Apple Limits AI Access to Latest Devices for Technical - and not Commercial - Reasons | Generative ai Google Course | Traditional ai Examples | Generative ai use Cases in Healthcare Examples | Turtles AI

Apple limits AI access to its latest devices for technical reasons, not commercial ones, executives state. The iPhone 15 Pro, with its A17 Pro chip, and Apple Silicon devices are the only ones with the necessary power to handle these advanced features.

At the recent WWDC 2024 event, Apple introduced numerous updates for its devices, including the eagerly awaited Apple Intelligence feature. However, this feature is only available on iPhone 15 Pro and devices with Apple Silicon chips, such as the latest iPads and Macs, leaving many users questioning the reasons for this limitation. John Giannandrea, Apple’s head of AI and machine learning, Greg Joswiak, marketing chief, and Craig Federighi, software head, clarified the motivations behind this choice in an interview with Daring Fireball conducted by John Gruber.

Giannandrea explained that running generative language models requires enormous computational power, known as inference. The inference of these models is extremely computationally expensive, necessitating a combination of device bandwidth, size of the Apple Neural Engine, and the ability to run the models quickly enough to be useful. While theoretically, these models could run on older devices, the performance would be so slow as to be unusable.

Joswiak reiterated that if it were a strategy to sell more iPhones, Apple could have included only the latest iPads and Macs, but the choice was purely hardware-based. Federighi added that Apple’s priority is to introduce features compatible with existing devices, but in the case of Apple Intelligence, the limitation is solely due to hardware requirements. The A17 Pro chip, with its 16-core Neural Engine, is twice as powerful as the A16 Bionic chip in standard iPhone 15 models, making the new iPhone 15 Pro the only option capable of handling these advanced features.

This decision has generated some criticism from users, who view it as a move to encourage the purchase of new devices. However, Apple executives assured that the decision is based on the need to ensure optimal performance and that the goal is always to provide the best possible user experience, even at the cost of limiting new features to newer devices.

Highlights:

• Apple Intelligence is only available on iPhone 15 Pro and Apple Silicon devices.
• Inference of generative language models requires significant computational power.
• The A17 Pro chip is essential for advanced AI functionalities.
• The decision is based on hardware requirements, not marketing strategies.