I’m wondering if the HomePods will get the new AI or if we will have to wait for a new device…
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You can’t even get AI on 2 year old iPhone Pros so I doubt it. We’ll have to wait a while until they care about Homepods again.
I don’t think they have enough memory to run Apple Intelligence.
They could offload the processing to a device that does. They currently do this for personal requests. Putting 8 gigabytes of RAM in a smart speaker is a bit silly.
8 gb of RAM may be a lot for the average smart speaker, but not for one that costs $300. Then again, we know Apple prices RAM like it’s made from diamonds and unicorn queefs.
Possibly, but I’m not sure that’s what OP was looking for in an answer.
It could be and answer. So far what your comments have taught me are: the HomePod hardware is too weak to host Apple Intelligence locally, but there may be a workaround by outsourcing the process to a server. In a larger scale, it would make sense for Apple to open AI servers for older devices and charge a monthly fee for it. It would likely be slower than local processing (depending on internet speeds) but it would allow AI to be available to more people, while generating a revenue and giving a preview of what you could get with a newer device that can run it locally.
I’m not convinced Apple will do that because they want to run as much AI on device as possible for privacy reasons. My guess is they will save Apple Intelligence for whatever this new home hub with a robotic arm display that is being rumored turns out to be.
What would be interesting to me is if they could somehow hand off devices in close proximity. E.g I have an iPhone 15 so no Apple intelligence but I have a Mac and an IPad Pro M2 so if it could utilise those devices for the query and sync up I wouldn’t mind a wee delay.
New Siri was not announced for existing HomePods. That said, there is an Apple event on Sept 9, so more products that support it may be announced.
Most folks are not expecting Apple intelligence on existing HomePods or AppleTVs. It would be very Apple-like to gate the new software behind a new hardware purchase.
I’d just turn it off. As terrible as Siri, I’m okay with it in its current form.
I’m not going back. The iOS 18.1 beta iteration without ChatGPT is so much better at understanding and responding to prompts.
It still does dumb stuff, but it’s a big upgrade.
