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Comment by a_vanderbilt | Hacker News Reader

Sure it probably comes down to sensor specs, but the same question can be asked about Apple Ingtelligence and the new iPhones. If the model is in a private cloud, why is it restricted to newer iPhones? Surely the preprocessing isn't so intensive that only the latest iPhones can do it. It's artificial segmentation in the interest of driving (historically weakening) sales.

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It’s not all in a private cloud. Much is on device, and as we all know AI stuff loves CPU and RAM.

They appear to have restricted it to 8 GB of RAM devices or more (when those appear).

During The Talk Show interview at WWDC with John Gruber an Apple exec (Joz?) said they did it because of user experience issues, seeming implying speed.

And given how hard AI hits hardware I think that’s relatively believable.

Yeah, I thought the same when they announced it. All in all, I feel that artificial segmentation is more frequent than ever and this can't be good indicator for their future growth, can it?

It's definitely a sign of the decline of hardware innovation. It's not for lack of trying, however. Apple has experimented with Touch Bars, VR, and LIDAR cameras, largely to little effect. They just aren't disruptive enough. So how then do they segment if not hardware? Software.

I think that growth is going to slow no matter what they do. Western and Japanese markets are saturated, and Chinese markets (once most promising) are bringing fierce competition both from local competition and the government.

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