If you were being cynical, you could say it was planned obsolescence and that when the new ai feature set rolls out that you have to get the new phone for them.
I think they got caught with their pants down when everybody started doing AI and they were like “hey, we have this cool VR headset”. Otherwise they would’ve at least prepared the regular iPhone 15 (6 GB) to be ready for Apple Intelligence. Every (Apple Silicon) device with 8 GB or more get Apple Intelligence, so M1 iPads from 2021 get it as well for example, even though the M1’s NPU is much weaker than some of the NPUs in unsupported devices with less RAM.
They are launching their AI (or at least everything under the “Apple Intelligence” umbrella) with iOS 18.1 which won’t even release with the launch of the new iPhones, and it’ll be US only (or at least English only) with several of the features announced at WWDC still missing/coming later and it’s unclear how they proceed in the EU.
With how polished Apples AI on mobile was at launch compared to Gemini on Android at launch were it could not even do basics like timers I suspect Apple had it in the works for far longer and it would not have been a total surprise.
Also you are describing the situation at launch for new hardware, the software will evolve every year going forward and the requirements will likely increase every year. If I am buying a flagship phone right now I want it to last at least 3 years of updates, if not 5 years. The phone has to be able to cope with what is a very basic requirement that is enough RAM.
This isn’t some NPU thing, this is just basic common sense that more RAM is better for this, something the flagship iPhones could have benefited from for a while now.
If you were being cynical, you could say it was planned obsolescence and that when the new ai feature set rolls out that you have to get the new phone for them.
I think they got caught with their pants down when everybody started doing AI and they were like “hey, we have this cool VR headset”. Otherwise they would’ve at least prepared the regular iPhone 15 (6 GB) to be ready for Apple Intelligence. Every (Apple Silicon) device with 8 GB or more get Apple Intelligence, so M1 iPads from 2021 get it as well for example, even though the M1’s NPU is much weaker than some of the NPUs in unsupported devices with less RAM.
They are launching their AI (or at least everything under the “Apple Intelligence” umbrella) with iOS 18.1 which won’t even release with the launch of the new iPhones, and it’ll be US only (or at least English only) with several of the features announced at WWDC still missing/coming later and it’s unclear how they proceed in the EU.
With how polished Apples AI on mobile was at launch compared to Gemini on Android at launch were it could not even do basics like timers I suspect Apple had it in the works for far longer and it would not have been a total surprise.
Also you are describing the situation at launch for new hardware, the software will evolve every year going forward and the requirements will likely increase every year. If I am buying a flagship phone right now I want it to last at least 3 years of updates, if not 5 years. The phone has to be able to cope with what is a very basic requirement that is enough RAM.
This isn’t some NPU thing, this is just basic common sense that more RAM is better for this, something the flagship iPhones could have benefited from for a while now.