The hidden benefit of AI: Apple gave us good hardware

It’s been more than a year since AI features started invading the smartphone-o-sphere. Nowadays, no smartphone announcement goes by without the mention of an AI super-magical assistant that will do anything and everything at your request. As long as that anything is a Google search and a note entry...

Snide comments aside, manufacturers are still throwing the proverbial AI spaghetti at the wall. And, while we wait to see what sticks, one thing has become apparent — AI needs hardware. A good chunk of RAM to be exact, and a pretty solid CPU performance.

Technically, that shouldn’t be a problem. 8 GB of RAM is the standard minimum nowadays, and so is a high-performance CPU.

Well, it’s the standard minimum if you’re… not Apple. The company has a track record of outfitting its phones and laptops with the minimum viable specs. That meant that up until 2024, we had the $800 iPhone 15 comfortably strutting about with 6 GB of RAM. Similarly, there were $1,000+ MacBook Airs and Pros sold with 8 GB RAM.

Generally, that wasn’t bad. Apple designs the hardware, Apple develops the software, and it’s well-known that iOS and MacOS are well-optimized and work well on the hardware provided.

But then, there was the added insult to injury. With the iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 series, the non-Pro models were further hampered by being equipped with last year’s hand-me-down CPUs. For example, the iPhone 14 had an A15 chip (5 nm build), while the 14 Pro had the A16 (upgraded 4 nm).

Essentially, Apple was selling this year’s phone with last year’s tech, unless you got the expensive Pro version. Typically, you wouldn’t render huge 4K videos on an iPhone, but those 6 GB did result in iOS freezing background apps more than you would want it to.

And if you were looking at doing some serious work, those 8 GB on a MacBook Pro were very much a bottleneck. Especially since the M-class chips do not deserve that type of treatment.

Apple is capable — more than capable — of providing sky-high specs, with up to 24 GB RAM, up to 2 TB storage. With the added caveat that the upgrade steps are way too expensive. Even at entry level, MacBooks and iPhones are not cheap, which is why it felt stingy when they started with less-than-optimal specs. But…

What do you do when the current hot trend demands better hardware?

Here’s the thing, though. Everyone is all in on AI, for one reason or another. AI tools in smartphone and laptop operating systems haven’t exactly proven useful beyond summarizing huge chunks of text, or performing and breaking down a quick Google search for you. But, the extra features like image searching, text generation, image generation or generative edits, et cetera do demand one thing — powerful hardware.

And since Apple was so keen on not only delving into AI, but actually hijacking the branding by naming its own take “Apple Intelligence”, and sticking it in every new product, it now faces the fact that even base level iPhones, iPads, and Macs need an upgrade.

For example, all MacBooks were “silently” upgraded this past October. If you shop for one now, you will notice that even base-level Macs come with 16 GB of RAM. Yes, even if you buy the cheapest MacBook Air with the “old” M2 chip — it’s still specced at 16 GB RAM at $999.

And iPhones? This generation is the iPhone 16 and Apple suddenly dropped the plan of putting old SoCs in the non-Pro models. The iPhone 16 comes with an A18 (3 nm), the iPhone 16 Pro comes with an A18 Pro (3 nm). The difference between the chips? One has a 5-core GPU, the other has a 6-core GPU. Otherwise, you have the same CPU power and same Neural Engine. Moreover, all iPhone 16 models have 8 GB of RAM by default, no more squeezing specs and cutting tiny corners.

The hidden benefit of AI — you may not be using it, but we are all getting better hardware because of it! Especially those new Mac minis!

One product left — the iPad

We can see the same going on with tablets now that Apple has even updated the iPad mini to have an A17 Pro chip. You might be wondering, “Well, what about the $350 base iPad?”. Good question!

The iPad 10th gen was launched in October of 2022, which means it’s been quite a while since it has received an upgrade. It has an aging Apple A14 Bionic inside (iPhone 12 era chip) and is definitely overdue for a refresh.

Regarding that cheapest iPad in the lineup, I believe Apple has painted itself in a corner with the whole AI push. It can’t launch a new iPad 11th gen at $350 with updated, powerful hardware. But it also can’t launch a new product without some sort of Apple Intelligence support on board, right? So, either Cupertino is trying to figure out a cut-down set of features, for example ones that work online only, or it’s waiting for the A17 SoC to become a bit older, so it could be put in an iPad 11th gen for a lower price.

So, is Artificial Intelligence good?

Nah, but I love the upgrades!