Both the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro were recently launched last week; however, one of their biggest features, Apple Intelligence, won’t be coming out until later in the fall. Apple Intelligence is expected to make its debut in iOS 18.1, with the latest beta released to developers, Apple added more information in its published document regarding the requirements for Apple Intelligence.
In the documentation’s ‘Supported Devices’ section, it further states that iPhone models require at least 4GB of storage.
“Apple Intelligence is available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, all iPhone 16 models, and iPad and Mac models with M1 and later. iPhone devices need 4GB of storage*.”
As previously mentioned, these devices have at least 8GB of RAM (unified memory) in order to support Apple Intelligence. What’s interesting is that only the iPhones are mentioned for this storage requirement. Whether there’ll be a different requirement for iPads/Macs or Apple chose not to disclose further details, this is still something to take note of if you’re upgrading either your iPad or Mac.
Also, that asterisk refers to a footnote at the end of Apple’s documentation notes: “Storage requirements for on-device Apple Intelligence models will increase as more features roll out.” In other words, 4GB is just the starting place for Apple’s initial rollout of AI features, and with more and more features eventually rolling out over the course of next year via software updates, the storage requirement will increase to accommodate those upcoming features.
So if you’re planning to upgrade to a newer iPhone and use the upcoming Apple Intelligence feature, I’d strongly recommend you to jump to a higher storage tier, maybe either a 256GB or 512GB storage configuration as the base 128GB on the iPhone 16/16 Plus/16 Pro may not cut it for you. Only the iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at 256GB of storage.
