While noting that Apple has baked a new and more advanced CPU scheduler into this year’s operating systems, the company also worked to bring it to older iPhone models — all the way back to the iPhone 11. That was the same cutoff point for iOS 26, so if your iPhone is running last year’s release, you’ll be getting this year’s also.
However, that doesn’t mean you’ll be getting everything that iOS 27 has to offer. Apple Intelligence features remain the exclusive domain of Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro and newer models, and while all these devices will still be eligible for most of the new AI features, Apple is raising the bar to another level for some of the most demanding new features.
According to Apple, some of the most advanced features, like Siri’s expressive voices and advanced dictation would be limited to only iPhones with 12GB of RAM.
iPhones with 12GB of RAM
iPhone models with 12GB of RAM include:
- iPhone 17 Pro
- iPhone 17 Pro Max
- iPhone Air.
Essentially, while Apple Intelligence used to require a minimum of 8GB of memory, in order to run the most advanced new on-device model, you’ll need 12GB.
The biggest shock is that the base iPhone 17 isn’t included. But that’s because the model ships with 8GB of memory, falling short of the 12GB threshold. The standard memory requirement for Apple Intelligence has been 8GB since its introduction, so this marks the first time Apple has raised the bar for its most capable on-device features.
According to Apple, the new model specifically enables features including expressive voices and more advanced dictation.
For iPad and Mac users, to run Apple’s most powerful on-device model, you’ll need:
- iPad with M4 and newer with 12GB or more in memory
- Mac with M3 and newer with 12GB or more in memory
- Apple Vision Pro with M5
While Apple offers multiple RAM configurations for most of its Macs (the notable exception being this year’s MacBook Neo, which comes in a single 8 GB configuration), the iPhone and the iPad use fixed RAM configurations based on the A-series or M-series chip inside — and the M3 iPad Air and base A19 chip still pack in only 8 GB of unified memory.
The A19 Pro was the first iPhone chip to get a bump to 12 GB, while the M4 iPads had a slightly weirder journey. When Apple debuted its first M4-powered iPad Pro models in early 2024, it split the RAM configurations based on storage capacity — the 256 GB and 512 GB models only had 8 GB of RAM, while the 1 TB and 2 TB versions got a bump all the way to 16 GB. When Apple brought the M4 chip to the iPad Air earlier this year, it split the difference, giving it 12 GB across the board.
In practical terms, this means you won’t be getting the flagship Apple Intelligence features in iPadOS 27 unless you opted for at least a 1 TB M4 iPad Pro or picked up this year’s M4 iPad Air.
In some ways, this echoes the 2024 debut of Apple Intelligence, when it was limited to the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, conspicuously leaving out the standard iPhone 15 models. Many speculated at the time that this was mostly about RAM — the A17 Pro was the first iPhone chip to get 8 GB of RAM, while the A16 Bionic in the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus packed in only 6 GB. However, Apple Intelligence did — and still does — run on a 2020-era M1 MacBook Air, which has a Neural Engine that operates at only 11 trillion operations per second (TOPS), compared to the A16 chip’s 17 TOPS. By that metric, the A16 should have been more than capable of handling Apple Intelligence in terms of raw processing power — but it lacked the RAM necessary for the large language models to breathe.
The same now applies to Apple’s new on-device Foundation Model. More advanced dictation and an expressive and conversational Siri naturally requires additional breathing room, and 8 GB just doesn’t cut it anymore.
