AI Features for Older Phones

By Misty Dawn, 7 January, 2025

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I have an iPhone 14 Pro.

I am wondering which AI features, if any, are accessible to me on this phone. Also wondering if there is any handy reference for this.

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Comments

By Brian on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 14:43

Only iPhones 15 Pro and newer will get any of the Apple Intelligence related stuff.

By Levi Gobin on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 14:43

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

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.

By Kyler G on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 14:43

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!

By Levi Gobin on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 14:43

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

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)

By Levi Gobin on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 14:43

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

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.

By Kyler G on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 14:43

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 :)

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 14:43

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.

By Bookworm on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 14:43

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.

By Holger Fiallo on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 14:43

Also for memory.

By Oliver on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 14:43

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.

By Dennis Long on Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - 14:43

I've heard rumors the SE4 will be named the 16 E. Just wait until that comes out. It will run apple apple intelligence.