What I myself don’t understand is why the ChatGPT integration couldn’t be pushed out to any device capable of accessing the Internet.
If Apple really wanted to, they could say that you could access ChatGPT with Siri using a device running iOS 12, if not even older versions. Apple could even push out the ChatGPT integration to Intel Max, if they wanted to. I get Apple keeping features away from older versions of iOS so that newer phones/iOS versions have something appealing to make you upgrade phones, and give them some of your hard earned money, but ChatGPT is something that anybody could use on any device that connects to the Internet.
I really wish all people had access to AI!
Why they don’t is beyond me.
As far as Apple is concerned, you need 8 GB of RAM for Apple Intelligence to work. I have seen (and even tested) some ways to get Apple Intelligence on unsupported devices.
Does it work? Sometimes yes, other times no. If Apple really wanted to, they could make any of the AI stuff work on older devices. there are even other non-AI features that Apple holds back on older devices that would work on those older devices.
For example, an iPad Air third generation will not get the smaller or natural sounding Siri voices (around 60 MB), it gets the ones found in versions before iOS 17.
When I spoofed the model of that iPad Air third generation to something that supposedly had a bigger and better chip, I was able to get those smaller voices on that iPad.
Did they work?
Yes! Were they sometimes slow? Maybe a little bit, but they worked.
This goes to show that even older devices could get some of the features that are exclusive to newer devices, even if they did run a bit slowly.
So, why don’t you have ChatGPT or any AI on your iPhone <15 Pro? Because Apple thinks(wrongly) that your device is too slow to handle it.
Proof of this is that older iPads with the M series chips can get all of the Apple Intelligence features, except for visual intelligence. Again, you could probably get visualIntelligence on an older device, if you know what you were doing.
Only the newer phones are getting Apple Intelligence. On top of that, in iOS 18.2 a ChatGPT integration was implemented but it was also lumped in with Apple Intelligence but does Apple care that ChatGPT goes through the cloud and that older phones could access that through Siri as well? NOOOOOOOOO! All they care about is making more people upgrade, probably so that their CEO could take a luxury vacation to Hawaii without having to have a serious budget LOL! It's so sick!
I know more than one occasion or somebody says “if Steve Jobs was still here, XYZ would be different”.
This is no exception. If he was here, something about Apple Intelligence would be different. But unfortunately, we have Mr. Tim Cook to deal with right now. I could probably make a shortcut that would make something very very similar to the ChatGPT integration for older devices. In fact, why don’t I do that. (Expect a link once it’s completed)
This shortcut uses the ChatGPT app and speaks the response using Siri, then copies it to your clipboard. I myself have an Apple Intelligence capable device, so when I was testing the shortcut out with Siri, it would keep using the native built-in integration rather than a shortcut. I have not figured out how to make the shortcut handle back-and-forth conversations, but this is better than nothing.
Here’s the link:
You mentioned that you tested some ways to get Apple Intelligence on older iPhones. I've seen YouTube videos of those but most require a Mac, which I do not have. I hope iOS 18.4 does something big for Siri on older devices, because as of right now, Siri hasn't really changed in the last 5 years and iOS 18.3 is a huge joke full of minor visual changes that VoiceOver won't recognize, not to mention the lack of any improved natural language understanding or even generative AI in the cloud to improve some of Siri's responses on older devices. 7.11GB wasted!
Thanks for posting the shortcut! I'll share with some friends to test out as well. Hopefully this will get integrated in 18.4; I'm getting kinda bored :)
OK, only thing I can think which is on old phones is the text change where you can make some words do things, that came in iOS 18. Make a word jiggleor move.
Hi. This is just a guess, but perhaps the reason why AI only works on the 15 Pro and newer, has to do for the processors. I'm thinking that oldfor phones don't have the needed processor power and abilities that the newer models have. One way around this is to use Chat GBT or Google's AI app called Gemini. Otherwise, you would need a newer phone. Another thought is to wait until the fall when the 17 line will be out. Even if you don't want the 17, the prices on the 16's will go down. Good luck.
The AI apple has so far adopted is not worth the upgrade. If you want a conversational LLM you need to get either Gemini or Chat GPT.
Yes, they could have it so Siri references chat GPT on older phones, but that would be a different system to the one they've created. You need 8 GB of ram to do the onboard AI which isn't just the conversational LLM.
Saying that, apple are working on their own LLM which will be part of IOS 19. It might be that this Siri is accessible from all Siri capable devices bu, until then, you'll get a far better experience using the Chat GPT app than using siri, even on a iPhone 15 pro and higher.
In short, you're not missing out. I think it will be another year or so before the gap between the AI phones and non-AI phones becomes wide enough to slip a playing card between.
I’m using Apple Intelligence on my Mac, and I can say that I don’t miss it on my iPhone 13. Apple still has a lot to work on, as it’s quite far from reality and not as good as ChatGPT or Crisp. I hope it improves in the coming days.
Here is a tip for anyone interested. While older iPhone owners may not get Apple Intelligence, we do get to integrate ChatGPT with Siri.
Steps:
1. Download/install ChatGPT app on iOS.
2. Activate Siri.
3. Say, "Ask ChatGPT" once Siri has been activated.
4. A dialog will popup asking if you want to incorporate ChatGPT shortcuts into Siri. Agree to this.
5. From this point on, you can say "Ask ChatGPT" after activating Siri to have your questions directed to ChatGPT.
You can use Hey Siri or Siri, as well, to do this. E.g. "Hey, Siri, ask ChatGPT".
Disclaimer, I know Levi Gobin mentioned something similar above, however, I thought this way might be a little easier to accomplish. 🙂
TL;DR:
You can use ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, MetaAI, or even Copilot on any supported device with an internet connection. Even older devices, like the iPhone 2G, could do that.
But does that mean you’re running these LLMs on-device? No. Your data is uploaded to a server, and the response comes back from the very same server. The same is true for newer iPhones with Apple Intelligence—many tasks still happen on the cloud.
If you want to run smaller, open-source models locally, there are great apps in the App Store for that. However, using Apple Intelligence still does send data to remote servers rather than doing everything absolutely on-device, even with Apple’s claims about privacy.
So why is ChatGPT locked behind the A17 chip? If it’s being accessed online, there’s no reason an older device with internet access shouldn’t work just fine—unless it’s a marketing decision. I wrote to Apple about this, but haven't heard back yet.
When it comes to this, OK—I totally understand that some of the older devices might not have access to the latest AI features, but honestly, I feel like it’s just better to use third-party products like ChatGPT, Gemini, and others. Because when it comes to Apple, they try to repurpose these tools for their own system, and from what I’ve seen so far, it doesn’t seem all that impressive. Yeah, it would be great to have AI integrated directly into the device, but I don’t have a problem using third-party access if it means better performance and more flexibility. I don’t see why older models can’t get access. Yes, I get that memory might be a factor—sure, that’s valid—but when it comes to the chips and the processing power needed to support these features, it’s not like Apple woke up one day and decided to release AI tools. They’ve known for years that this kind of technology was coming. They could’ve easily built their chips and planned their hardware around supporting more devices. Apple knew these requirements would exist long before they were public, and they still chose to lock newer features behind newer models. They could’ve shipped more accessible AI capability across devices—they didn’t. Anything for the money, I guess. Honestly, greed is what’s tearing this world apart, and it’s really sad. It’s not that older devices are too slow or not capable of handling higher-power features—it’s simply about money. And OK, fine, that’s valid to a degree. A company is a company, and they’re in business to make a profit. But let’s not pretend it’s about technical limitations when it’s about pushing people to upgrade.
A lot of these new AI-powered models are diluted when Apple repurposes them for their system—they don’t work quite as well. Apple always tries to “do it better,” and sometimes they succeed, but a lot of the time it feels like they’re deliberately slowing down innovation. They hold back features so they can save something for next year’s release, and they delay adding things Android and other platforms already have so they can later say, “Look, we did it better.”
And sure, I’ll admit it—when Apple finally releases their version of a feature and nails it, I’m more likely to switch over. But still, it is what it is. For now, I’m not relying on Apple’s onboarding of intelligence. I’m using third-party apps. For image descriptions, I’ve got Be My Eyes. For video descriptions, I’m using PiccyBot. Those are working great for me, and they’re not falling behind—so I’m not sitting around waiting for Apple to catch up. Like I said, I’m happy with the third-party tools.
Comments
As I understand it
Only iPhones 15 Pro and newer will get any of the Apple Intelligence related stuff.
Any AI from Apple is out of the question, unfortunately.
What I myself don’t understand is why the ChatGPT integration couldn’t be pushed out to any device capable of accessing the Internet.
If Apple really wanted to, they could say that you could access ChatGPT with Siri using a device running iOS 12, if not even older versions. Apple could even push out the ChatGPT integration to Intel Max, if they wanted to. I get Apple keeping features away from older versions of iOS so that newer phones/iOS versions have something appealing to make you upgrade phones, and give them some of your hard earned money, but ChatGPT is something that anybody could use on any device that connects to the Internet.
I really wish all people had access to AI!
Why they don’t is beyond me.
As far as Apple is concerned, you need 8 GB of RAM for Apple Intelligence to work. I have seen (and even tested) some ways to get Apple Intelligence on unsupported devices.
Does it work? Sometimes yes, other times no. If Apple really wanted to, they could make any of the AI stuff work on older devices. there are even other non-AI features that Apple holds back on older devices that would work on those older devices.
For example, an iPad Air third generation will not get the smaller or natural sounding Siri voices (around 60 MB), it gets the ones found in versions before iOS 17.
When I spoofed the model of that iPad Air third generation to something that supposedly had a bigger and better chip, I was able to get those smaller voices on that iPad.
Did they work?
Yes! Were they sometimes slow? Maybe a little bit, but they worked.
This goes to show that even older devices could get some of the features that are exclusive to newer devices, even if they did run a bit slowly.
So, why don’t you have ChatGPT or any AI on your iPhone <15 Pro? Because Apple thinks(wrongly) that your device is too slow to handle it.
Proof of this is that older iPads with the M series chips can get all of the Apple Intelligence features, except for visual intelligence. Again, you could probably get visualIntelligence on an older device, if you know what you were doing.
Bullsnot Marketing
Only the newer phones are getting Apple Intelligence. On top of that, in iOS 18.2 a ChatGPT integration was implemented but it was also lumped in with Apple Intelligence but does Apple care that ChatGPT goes through the cloud and that older phones could access that through Siri as well? NOOOOOOOOO! All they care about is making more people upgrade, probably so that their CEO could take a luxury vacation to Hawaii without having to have a serious budget LOL! It's so sick!
@Kyler G I know!
I know more than one occasion or somebody says “if Steve Jobs was still here, XYZ would be different”.
This is no exception. If he was here, something about Apple Intelligence would be different. But unfortunately, we have Mr. Tim Cook to deal with right now. I could probably make a shortcut that would make something very very similar to the ChatGPT integration for older devices. In fact, why don’t I do that. (Expect a link once it’s completed)
Shortcut for asking AI using the ChatGPT app
This shortcut uses the ChatGPT app and speaks the response using Siri, then copies it to your clipboard. I myself have an Apple Intelligence capable device, so when I was testing the shortcut out with Siri, it would keep using the native built-in integration rather than a shortcut. I have not figured out how to make the shortcut handle back-and-forth conversations, but this is better than nothing.
Here’s the link:
https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/b27c5258d59f43a28dc5be04da2566e5
If you mess around with the shortcut, you could replace ChatGPT with any AI of your choice that supports Shortcuts integration.
@Levi Gobin AI On Unsupported Devices?
You mentioned that you tested some ways to get Apple Intelligence on older iPhones. I've seen YouTube videos of those but most require a Mac, which I do not have. I hope iOS 18.4 does something big for Siri on older devices, because as of right now, Siri hasn't really changed in the last 5 years and iOS 18.3 is a huge joke full of minor visual changes that VoiceOver won't recognize, not to mention the lack of any improved natural language understanding or even generative AI in the cloud to improve some of Siri's responses on older devices. 7.11GB wasted!
Thanks for posting the shortcut! I'll share with some friends to test out as well. Hopefully this will get integrated in 18.4; I'm getting kinda bored :)
text change
OK, only thing I can think which is on old phones is the text change where you can make some words do things, that came in iOS 18. Make a word jiggleor move.
Processors and AI
Hi. This is just a guess, but perhaps the reason why AI only works on the 15 Pro and newer, has to do for the processors. I'm thinking that oldfor phones don't have the needed processor power and abilities that the newer models have. One way around this is to use Chat GBT or Google's AI app called Gemini. Otherwise, you would need a newer phone. Another thought is to wait until the fall when the 17 line will be out. Even if you don't want the 17, the prices on the 16's will go down. Good luck.
Ran or RAM
Also for memory.
The AI apple has so far…
The AI apple has so far adopted is not worth the upgrade. If you want a conversational LLM you need to get either Gemini or Chat GPT.
Yes, they could have it so Siri references chat GPT on older phones, but that would be a different system to the one they've created. You need 8 GB of ram to do the onboard AI which isn't just the conversational LLM.
Saying that, apple are working on their own LLM which will be part of IOS 19. It might be that this Siri is accessible from all Siri capable devices bu, until then, you'll get a far better experience using the Chat GPT app than using siri, even on a iPhone 15 pro and higher.
In short, you're not missing out. I think it will be another year or so before the gap between the AI phones and non-AI phones becomes wide enough to slip a playing card between.
wait until the SE 4 or 16 E
I've heard rumors the SE4 will be named the 16 E. Just wait until that comes out. It will run apple apple intelligence.
AI isnt that good
I’m using Apple Intelligence on my Mac, and I can say that I don’t miss it on my iPhone 13. Apple still has a lot to work on, as it’s quite far from reality and not as good as ChatGPT or Crisp. I hope it improves in the coming days.
Tip: ChatGPT w/ older iPhones
Here is a tip for anyone interested. While older iPhone owners may not get Apple Intelligence, we do get to integrate ChatGPT with Siri.
Steps:
1. Download/install ChatGPT app on iOS.
2. Activate Siri.
3. Say, "Ask ChatGPT" once Siri has been activated.
4. A dialog will popup asking if you want to incorporate ChatGPT shortcuts into Siri. Agree to this.
5. From this point on, you can say "Ask ChatGPT" after activating Siri to have your questions directed to ChatGPT.
You can use Hey Siri or Siri, as well, to do this. E.g. "Hey, Siri, ask ChatGPT".
Disclaimer, I know Levi Gobin mentioned something similar above, however, I thought this way might be a little easier to accomplish. 🙂
Source: https://tech.yahoo.com/general/articles/dont-apple-intelligence-anyone-chatgpt-140013126.html
Nonsense
TL;DR:
You can use ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Grok, DeepSeek, MetaAI, or even Copilot on any supported device with an internet connection. Even older devices, like the iPhone 2G, could do that.
But does that mean you’re running these LLMs on-device? No. Your data is uploaded to a server, and the response comes back from the very same server. The same is true for newer iPhones with Apple Intelligence—many tasks still happen on the cloud.
If you want to run smaller, open-source models locally, there are great apps in the App Store for that. However, using Apple Intelligence still does send data to remote servers rather than doing everything absolutely on-device, even with Apple’s claims about privacy.
So why is ChatGPT locked behind the A17 chip? If it’s being accessed online, there’s no reason an older device with internet access shouldn’t work just fine—unless it’s a marketing decision. I wrote to Apple about this, but haven't heard back yet.
Aurora
15 pro and up regarding devices. 14 pro "No way Jose".
Apple and AI
When it comes to this, OK—I totally understand that some of the older devices might not have access to the latest AI features, but honestly, I feel like it’s just better to use third-party products like ChatGPT, Gemini, and others. Because when it comes to Apple, they try to repurpose these tools for their own system, and from what I’ve seen so far, it doesn’t seem all that impressive. Yeah, it would be great to have AI integrated directly into the device, but I don’t have a problem using third-party access if it means better performance and more flexibility. I don’t see why older models can’t get access. Yes, I get that memory might be a factor—sure, that’s valid—but when it comes to the chips and the processing power needed to support these features, it’s not like Apple woke up one day and decided to release AI tools. They’ve known for years that this kind of technology was coming. They could’ve easily built their chips and planned their hardware around supporting more devices. Apple knew these requirements would exist long before they were public, and they still chose to lock newer features behind newer models. They could’ve shipped more accessible AI capability across devices—they didn’t. Anything for the money, I guess. Honestly, greed is what’s tearing this world apart, and it’s really sad. It’s not that older devices are too slow or not capable of handling higher-power features—it’s simply about money. And OK, fine, that’s valid to a degree. A company is a company, and they’re in business to make a profit. But let’s not pretend it’s about technical limitations when it’s about pushing people to upgrade.
A lot of these new AI-powered models are diluted when Apple repurposes them for their system—they don’t work quite as well. Apple always tries to “do it better,” and sometimes they succeed, but a lot of the time it feels like they’re deliberately slowing down innovation. They hold back features so they can save something for next year’s release, and they delay adding things Android and other platforms already have so they can later say, “Look, we did it better.”
And sure, I’ll admit it—when Apple finally releases their version of a feature and nails it, I’m more likely to switch over. But still, it is what it is. For now, I’m not relying on Apple’s onboarding of intelligence. I’m using third-party apps. For image descriptions, I’ve got Be My Eyes. For video descriptions, I’m using PiccyBot. Those are working great for me, and they’re not falling behind—so I’m not sitting around waiting for Apple to catch up. Like I said, I’m happy with the third-party tools.