iPhone XR & XS were released 6 years ago. That’s solid support longevity.
It makes sense that Apple Intelligence only works on current and next-gen hardware. The A17 Pro chip has a 16-core Neural Engine performing at 35 TOPS, twice that of the A16 Bionic’s 17 TOPS.
Yeah I thought it was a NPU tops issue that’s keeping it off the 17 non pro. However since it runs on a M1 I think it’s more to do with needing 8GB RAM to fit the model.
The A16 Bionic has as Neural Engine capable of 17 TOPS but 6GB of RAM.
The M1 had a Neural Engine capable of just 11 TOPS but all M1 chips have at least 8GB of RAM.
So the model could run on an A16 Bionic if it had 8GB of RAM as it has 54% more TOPS than the M1, but it only has 6GB of RAM. Apple have clearly decided that a model small enough to fit just wouldn’t give good enough results.
Maybe as research progresses they’ll find a way to make it work with a model with fewer parameters but I’m not going to hold my breath.
Apple's new iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 updates are mostly good news for users of older Apple devices—with the exception of 2018's sixth-generation iPad, the new updates will run on all the same hardware that can run iOS 17 and iPadOS 17.
It's a bit odd that the seventh-gen iPad makes the cutoff while the sixth-gen model does not, given that both use the same Apple A10 processor.
While this support list is fairly generous, Apple's headlining "Apple Intelligence" AI features will be restricted to newer devices on the list.
Aside from Apple Intelligence, the company lists a few other features that require a newer device to work.
The Smart Script handwriting enhancement feature requires an iPad with Apple M-series chip or an A14, cutting out a handful of older models with A10, A12, and A13-series chips.
On the iOS side, live audio transcription, the Eye Tracking accessibility feature, and the Vocal Shortcuts accessibility feature require an iPhone 12 or newer.
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