Can the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus run Apple Intelligence AI?

Image credit – Apple

Yes, the iPhone 16 will likely support Apple Intelligence. It came as a little surprise when Apple listed only its most expensive iPhones as capable of running its own take on AI-assisted iOS 18 features that it collectively called Apple Intelligence. After all, fragmentation of the iPhone franchise has been its favorite pastime for a few years now. 

Apple Intelligence needs power

The sheer variety of Apple Intelligence features brings added complexity to the task of running it as an integrative part of iOS 18. Spanning the usual AI stuff that other brands already have, such as chatbots and object erasers, live transcription and translation, or content creation assistance, AI on iPhones still offers a uniquely Apple touch, down to the deep Siri integration.

Video credit – Apple

Could Apple have done the same? After all, it is a master of its own A-series of processors and can add features or expand the existing architecture as it sees fit. Heck, it has even been shipping the A-line of chipsets with its own AI coprocessor for a good while now, making computational photography a breeze on the iPhone.

It’s not that Apple is nickel-and-diming its customers yet again by nudging them to buy its AI-capable iPhones, which happen to cost at least a grand, added Apple’s Head of Marketing Greg Joswiak. If it was so, he argued, Apple would’ve brought Apple Intelligence only to the most recent Macs or iPads, and that is not the case, as anything with M1 can run it.

Video interview credit – Daring Fireball

The iPhone 16 will run Apple Intelligence for the rest of us

Thankfully, the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus have been rumored to come with 8GB of RAM instead of the 6GB in their predecessors since last September. At the time, Haitong International Securities analyst Jeff Pu claimed that the iPhone 16 will have 8GB of RAM for some mysterious reason.

What’s more interesting, though, is that he also agreed with Jeff’s prediction that Apple will make the A18 processor for the iPhone 16 with the cheapest possible 3nm production process of TSMC.

iPhone 16’s A18 chip may use slower N3E 3nm production method | Image credit – TSMC

While the foundry’s executive expects most customers to move to ask for the more transistor-dense N3P process this year, Apple might stay with the cheaper N3E, at least for the lowly iPhone 16:

TSMC exec, May ’24

Jumping from $160 to $200 for a wholesale chipset price could bring its share of the S25 Ultra’s production costs close to 40%, but that’s the price Qualcomm and Samsung will have to pay if they want a chipset made with the latest N3P 3nm process generation.

That base N3E A18 Bionic is expected to land in the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus, while the top-shelf A18 Pro with the N3P process will eventually be powering the flagship iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max handsets.

Thus, the iPhone 16 and 16 Plus chipset may be 5% slower or with up to 10% worse power efficiency, but it will come cheaper and, above all, will be able to run Apple Intelligence.