Apple Intelligence now takes up almost twice as much space on your iPhone as it used to
- Apple Intelligence now requires 7 GB, up from 4 GB
- The increase is due to new features in iOS 18.2
- Expect demands to rise even further
Over the past year we’ve heard a lot about Apple Intelligence and how it’s going to change the way we use our Apple devices – and it looks like AI technology is going to take up more internal storage space on those devices too.
As noted by 9to5MacAccording to Apple’s website, the recently launched iOS 18.2 update requires 7GB of free local storage to install Apple Intelligence. When the AI features appeared in iOS 18.1, the requirement was 4 GB.
It’s no surprise that the iOS 18.2 update takes up so much more space on your device: it includes a wealth of new AI tricks, including ChatGPT integration with the Siri smart assistant, Genmoji and Visual Intelligence.
The first set of Apple Intelligence features that arrived in iOS 18.1 in October included writing tools and notification summaries. These upgrades will continue to appear gradually as we move towards iOS 19 next year.
There’s more to come
Apple wants its AI to run locally as much as possible: not being dependent on the cloud means faster response times and improved user privacy. However, as we now see, there is a cost associated with storage space.
You can disable Apple Intelligence if you wish: the setting is below Apple Intelligence & Siri on your iPhone, iPad or Mac. You can also choose not to install it at all, as it is not enabled by default on these devices.
However, you can’t choose the AI features you want: it’s all or nothing. If you’re low on storage space on your device, you might want to think twice about enabling Apple Intelligence (or buying some more iCloud storage space, of course).
And it’s likely that Apple Intelligence will demand even more storage in 2025: iOS 18.4 is expected to bring a slew of new AI updates, including smarter features for Siri.