Apple This story is part of our complete Apple WWDC coverage “I just have to see anything particularly useful that AI can do,” a tech journalism veteran told me ahead of Apple’s WWDC 2024 event. To a large extent, I agree with the sentiment, even though I have pushed consumer-grade AI tools in every scenario that my hardware selection allowed. By the time Apple’s event concluded, I had a strong feeling that Apple may just have delivered the most practical dose of AI on a smartphone.

Contents What makes Apple Intelligence special AI tricks that are legitimately useful Google walked so Apple could run These are the AI features we’ve been waiting for We have entered the era of Apple Intelligence on iPhones. I will drop the bad news first: The whole AI platter has been served only on the latest and greatest “Pro” iPhones. They are not even available for the iPhone 15 or the iPhone 15 Plus.

It seems the silicon and the onboard NPU are to blame, or maybe it’s all-important memory restrictions. Similar restrictions apply for iPads, which need at least an M-class processor. Recommended Videos Google’s approach isn’t too different.

The company kept on-device Gemini Nano limited to the Pixel 8 series phones, while Samsung also started the race with Galaxy AI features exclusive to the Galaxy S24 series phones. Some course corrections happened in the weeks to follow. Related iOS 18 makes an 11-year-old iPhone feature exciting again Apple did something weird at WWDC 20.