Apple has explained why older iPhone models and the Vision Pro mixed reality headset will not support Apple Intelligence AI. This was reported by WCCF Tech.

During the WWDC 2024 conference, it was announced that Apple Intelligence features will only be available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPad, and Mac devices powered by Apple’s proprietary M1 chips and newer. It was noted that the neural processor (NPU) in the Apple M1 is comparable in performance to the NPU in the Apple A14 used in the iPhone 12.

However, as Apple clarified, the M2-based Vision Pro does not support Apple Intelligence because the headset's NPU is already occupied with AI tasks such as object and gesture recognition, leaving no available computational power for other tasks.

A similar situation applies to older iPhone models. Although their NPUs are similar in power to the ones in Apple M1, in laptops and tablets these units are less loaded than in smartphones. Additionally, older iPhones have less than 8 GB of RAM, which also affects the support for new features.

Support for Apple Intelligence will appear on the iPhone 15 Pro and other company gadgets closer to the end of 2024. Some AI features will appear next year.