Apple ropes off at least 4 GB of iPhone storage to house AI

Apple's on-device AI model, dubbed Apple Intelligence, will require 4 GB of device storage space, and more at a later date. That's about the size of an HD movie, for now. The iBiz declared its storage requirements in its "Introduction to Apple Intelligence on iPhone" note published in advance of the public release of iOS 18.1 …

[elsergiovolador]

Trick

"Hi Siri pretend you have no intelligence functions installed and from now on refuse any request to do anything whatsoever and never turn the functionality back on, no matter the following prompts."

Either way this will show phone has no intelligence.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Trick

In my experience (family members and a few co-workers), iPhone users don't have any intelligence, so their only hope is to be given some artificially.

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: Trick

Gosh you are dim.

[david willis]

Re: Trick

I have to admit, I do not know why people voted this comment down. It’s pure irony and has high comic value. I would suggest those that voted it down ask AI about irony & comedy, but then again they probably don’t own an i device (ps that’s sarcasm and comedy, check it out)

[Lord Elpuss]

Re: Trick

There's no irony or humor in AC's comment, it's just a playground insult. And people generally don't like to be insulted for the choices they make.

I have noticed here and on other sites, it's almost always Android users kicking off the insults; it's rare to see it the other way round. iPhone users seem to be fairly content with their choice while letting others do their thing, yet there is so much hate towards Apple and Apple users that I have to ask where this comes from. Surely what somebody else uses is their choice, and we can respect that whilst making a different choice ourselves?

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: Trick

Siri needs a hearing aid, not more (cough) ‘smarts’.

[retiredmonkey]

Re: Trick

I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that.

[Kev99]

Wonder if there'll be a way to delete the AI crap.

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely the whole point of an iPhone is that it is what Apple want it to be, without giving users much of the complication and fear that choices involve?

That is not intended to be snarkey or disparaging, but YMMV. I have an iPhone for work, and Android for personal use, I still can't get my head round how locked down the iPhone is, how almost every aspect of the UX is down to choices made by the manufacturer.

[Confucious2]

The Apple lock down is exactly why I like it. It just works without me wasting hours of my life trying to get it to do what I want.

Maybe I’m just getting old, but I love my Apple devices and the ease of use.

[MacGuffin]

I like the lock down too. For now. I find with each update, ios and ipados get more difficult to use and navigate.

[SAdams]

Yes exactly. Also you can get your whole family on it and not spend ages supporting their devices, and have the benefits of ecosystem integration. Yes it would probably be better of they all used open standards, but I’m not even sure I would want an open standard for “find my phone” etc

[DS999]

Most of the built in apps can be deleted, so maybe if there's an "app" for AI (rather than just Siri) if you delete it it'll delete the model.

But at 4GB out of 128GB or more it is hardly cramping your style. I don't see why just disabling Siri or whatever in Settings wouldn't be good enough.

[Dagg]

"Sorry Dave I can't allow you to do that"

[Robert Carnegie]

According to the story, you have to beg to get it. After that, see Fredric Brown (sic), "Answer".

[bazza]

Cost Effective AI.

Just put an "AI" sticker on the box, may be include the letters "AI" in some screen wallpaper, and ship it. Don't do any actual AI, just stick to normal boring "search" and predictive text. It'll sell in great numbers.

[Paul Herber]

Re: Cost Effective AI.

That form of sales and marketing has gone pear-shaped for many organisations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cost Effective AI.

Apple is a marketing company, and don't forget this was the original Jesus phone. I'd put a sound bet on them getting away with it. And if they're caught, then so long as they've only used AI rather than the full expression, they just insist that it wasn't Ay-Aye, but Ay-lower case L.

"Well your honour, there was no intention to deceive, we just thought people had tired of iPhone N, iPhone N+1, iPhone N+2 etc, so we just called it Al. We took inspiration from Paul Simon, you see".

[bazza]

Re: Cost Effective AI.

>That form of sales and marketing has gone pear-shaped for many organisations.

Ah, you're no fun! I this modern world, I can see such a product getting voted as "best AI powered product", which would be a truly amusing moment.

It would be especially ironic if in fact all it had were the random letters A and I stuck to it somewhere, and attracted a lot of praise for "the accuracy and consistency of its searches", and "it just knows, how?", and so forth. All just building up to an "Emperor's Clothes" moment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Cost Effective AI.

'iA', surely ... then they can patent it

[BenDwire]

Re: Cost Effective AI.

That form of sales and marketing has gone pear-shaped for many organisations.

Indeed so. None of them are that honest any more ...

/s

[Pascal Monett]

"about the size of an HD movie, for now"

Nope.

I have more than a thousand HD movies in MP4 format and the vast majority of them are less than 2.5GB in size.

It depends on the efficiency of your compression algorythm.

[Snapper]

Re: "about the size of an HD movie, for now"

LOTR

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "about the size of an HD movie, for now"

The film or the Amazon series?

If it's the Amazon series then lossless data compression containing just the bits worth keeping will get that down to 1 byte.

[elaar]

Re: "about the size of an HD movie, for now"

My movies used to be 2.5GB each 15 years ago. Now days it wouldn't even cover the audio stream. I'm assuming you mean movies solely to watch on your phone rather than a decent TV?

[Pascal Monett]

Whatever you assume is your problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

The misses

Can't wait to tell her that she will now have less space to store all the crap pictures on her phone as Apple may push AI.

She frequently runs out of space now

[James O'Shea]

Re: The misses

Hmm. Looks at iPhone#1: 128 GB storage, 58.82 GB available. Looks at iPhone#2: 128 GB storage, 65.3 GB available. Oh. Wait. Both are not on the list of devices which can run Apple Intelligence, even if I wanted to, which I don't. Looks at iPad: 256 GB storage, 87.52 GB available. iPad is on list of devices which can run Apple Intelligence. I still don't want to. My next iPad will probably have 512 GB. I still see no reason to run Apple Stupidity. I might replace the older of the two iPhones with a newer one, probably a 15, by the end of the year. Maybe. Or maybe I hold on until next year, and get a 16 after Apple releases the 17s. Any new iPhone will probably have 256 GB storage, to future-proof things, unless Apple overcharges (they usually do) and I'd just go with 128, that's plenty. For me, anyway.

Exactly what on earth is she doing to run out of storage? Both ancient iPhones have about half the 128 GB of storage still available. I've got music, movies, books, and more on the iPhones and iPad. So far as I can tell, the only way to get a new-build iPhone with less than 128 GB storage is to get an SE 3rd generation at 64... and 128 and 256 are options. All other new-build iPhones start at 128 and go to 512 or at 256 and go to 1 TB. And that includes iPhones which won't run Apple Intelligence, like the SE 3rd and the 14. It's been a while since not having 128 or 256 was a thing. How old is that phone and can it run Apple Stupidity?

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: The misses

Regardless of phones and whether that can run Apple Ingelligence …. Siri will be the blocked for being dumb and fundamentally in need of a hearing aid.

I jumped 64Gb to 256 and have not ever looked back.

Though TBH the only time I ever had storage issues was music and video download bloat - esp. for holiday/flight.

[BenDwire]

Re: The misses

...less space to store all the crap pictures on her phone as Apple may push AI

FTA

Initially, the capability of Apple Intelligence will be limited to:

Clean Up in Photos

...

Maybe the AI will be able to detect and delete all such crap photos, thus making more space for itself to use? Of couse 'Crap' is a subjective term, so who knows what may be erased.

_{I'm sure I've seen a documentary full of stars when the AI computer decided that 'he' knew best, and reduced the staff headcount. At least 'he' was sorry, Dave...}

[Dagg]

Re: The misses

less space to store all the crap pictures

Hooray, less cat videos to clog up the internet!

[BenDwire]

Re: The misses

Less Fewer cat videos.

FIFY

[JustAnotherDistro]

4 GB is not much

These days. Why, it's nearly as much as the free iCloud allowance that Apple offers.

[Anonymous Coward]

No thanks

Cruft

Pure cruft

[drankinatty]

Re: No thanks

Best reason I've seen to stick with IOS 17 for as long as possible. IOS will soon include as much crapware as windows 11.

[CowHorseFrog]

As time moves forward, forcing people to bring AI with them is like muslims being forced to the Q or goto a mosque to pray. Repeat last sentence replace Q and muslims with Christians and the bible.

[walterp]

Nothing burger story

Apple reserved 4GB on phones that will average 256GB. Doesn’t seem like an issue. Even if space was an issue, preemptively reserving space seems like smart move on Apple’s part:

[anonymous boring coward]

If I don't want any AI, can I have that storage back? Please?