Apple reportedly plans to limit the most advanced Siri artificial intelligence features to iPhone 18 Pro models. This strategy aims to steer buyers toward higher-margin devices while restricting capabilities on the base model.
Apple reportedly restricts advanced Siri capabilities to drive sales toward higher-margin Pro variants with sufficient memory bandwidth.
The upcoming iPhone 18 series includes a base variant and a Pro Duo configuration. The base iPhone 18 is expected to ship with only 8GB of RAM, which falls short of the requirements for next-generation on-device AI workloads.
Apple requires at least 12GB of RAM for the AFM 3 Core Advanced model used in Pro devices. This architecture places attention blocks directly into DRAM while storing FFN weights in NAND storage to optimize performance and memory usage.
The hardware split creates a clear divide between entry-level and premium tiers. Base models cannot run the full AI suite due to insufficient memory bandwidth and capacity for the hybrid storage approach.
Apple uses this technical requirement to drive sales toward Pro variants with better margins. The company restricts advanced Siri capabilities on the low-margin base iPhone 18 to encourage upgrades.
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