Apple reportedly plans to make some of Apple Intelligence’s features paid, making the technology not free to use. Here’s how it works.
Apple Intelligence
Apple Intelligence extends nearly every feature on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac with artificial intelligence. It adds helpful tools like the Writing Tools and an improved version of Siri. These new features are coming to all devices with an M1 chip, A17 Pro chip or later. That means that unfortunately only the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max have support for the latest tech.
Also read: Apple Intelligence: this is what you need to know about Apple’s new AI technology
With iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, all of the new Apple Intelligence features will come for free to supported iPhones, iPads, and Macs. That will change in the future, according to usually reliable Apple analyst Mark Gurman. He says that you’ll likely have to pay for new AI features from Apple, similar to other Apple subscription plans, like iCloud Plus.
More features with Apple Intelligence Plus
Gurman predicts that the subscription will eventually be called Apple Intelligence Plus, for which you pay a monthly fee. This subscription will probably give you more advanced features, but it is not yet known what those are. It may give you more options if you want to edit images or if you want to compose text. It is expected that the basic features will remain free.
With paid subscriptions such as Apple Intelligence Plus and iCloud Plus, Apple is trying to become less dependent on new hardware. The company currently releases a new iPhone and Apple Watch every year, but this could change in the future. Innovations in hardware are becoming increasingly difficult, which means that the differences between old and new devices are often relatively small. If subscriptions generate more money, Apple could later choose to release a new Apple Watch every two years, for example.
Release still unclear
For now, we don’t have to worry, because according to Gurman, Apple Intelligence will remain free for a while. In the long term, Apple Intelligence Plus will be introduced, for which Apple will charge a monthly fee. Incidentally, it is not yet clear when Apple will release the new AI functions here, because the new technology will only come to Europe later.
Also read: This is what else Apple plans to do in 2024 (and these products are coming)
With the release of iOS 18, iPadOS 18 and macOS Sequoia, we will not yet be able to use Apple Intelligence. It is possible that all new AI functions will not be available in the Netherlands and Belgium until 2025. Are you curious whether your Apple device has support for all new functions? Then view the complete overview of all devices that work with Apple Intelligence here!
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