Apple is all-in on AI, and its rebranded ‘Apple Intelligence’ could be based on the latest the ISA Arm has to offer.
If the news out of WWDC detailing all of the things on tap for iOS 18 wasn’t clear enough, Apple has gone all-in on artificial intelligence. Its rebranded Apple Intelligence has gone native, with last year’s iPhone 15 Pro range and presumably the whole iPhone 16 lineup sporting on-device machine learning features. And of course, Arm is also going whole hog on AI with its Armv9-A instruction set, which is reportedly on track to make its Apple debut in Cupertino’s latest phone chips.
For those not keeping track of esoteric number and letter combinations, the Armv8-A architecture found in most smartphone chips is where Arm went 64-bit with its mobile designs. That includes just about everything from the last eight years or so from Apple and Qualcomm. Presently Apple’s A17 Bionic chip from the iPhone 15 Pro family uses Armv8.6-A. The leap to Armv9-A is all about artificial intelligence, and it’s what gives current Android devices an advantage processing large datasets. As far as Apple goes, the latest ISA is only found in the M4 chip which so far can only be found in the 2024 iPad Pro.
