Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.2 requires twice as much memory on iPhone

With the release of iOS 18.1, Apple Intelligence began to gradually deploy on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and with iOS 18.2, AI features started requiring twice as much memory.

As 9to5mac reports, Apple Intelligence will now need 7 GB of free storage on the device — originally it was only 4 GB. The requirements have increased due to the launch of several new features such as Genmoji, ChatGPT in Siri, and Image Playground, which creates images based on user prompts.

One of the reasons these AI features require so much space is that Apple Intelligence uses on-device processing, and accordingly, the models themselves have to be stored on the device. Although this method provides some additional privacy, the impact on storage space will be ongoing — meaning, expect even more demands on storage with the launch of new features.

Currently, Apple is not planning to add new AI features in iOS 18.3, but new beta versions could change these plans.

Previous surveys have shown that users are far from thrilled with the new iPhone features — at least 73% of surveyed people who tested Apple Intelligence reported that the update “adds no value” to their experience with the phone. Users also complain about a significant impact of the new features on device battery life and misleading summaries of news articles by Apple Intelligence.