Apple Intelligence has a tier above the tier, and it asks for a different chip on each platform. On the iPad it needs M4 or later with 12GB or more of unified memory; on the Mac it needs M3 or later with the same 12GB.
The memory floor is identical and the silicon floor is a generation apart, which Apple has not explained anywhere it publishes the requirement. The tier gates two features rather than a feature set, and it arrives with iPadOS 27 and macOS 27 Golden Gate on Monday, September 14.
| Item | What Apple publishes |
|---|---|
| Apple’s name for the tier | The advanced on-device model |
| Features behind it | Siri voice customization and improved on-device Dictation |
| iPad requirement | M4 or later, 12GB or more unified memory |
| Mac requirement | M3 or later, 12GB or more unified memory |
| iPhone requirement | Six models named, no chip or memory figure |
| Apple Vision Pro requirement | M5 |
The two features behind the higher tier
Apple puts two things behind this line. The first is Siri voice customization, which covers pitch, speed, tone and accent. The second is improved on-device Dictation, which Apple credits to a powerful new on-device model.
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Everything else in Apple Intelligence sits on the wider floor, which is M1 and later for iPad and Mac, iPad mini with A17 Pro, and the iPhone list that starts at the iPhone 15 Pro. Siri AI itself is on that wider floor, in beta, in English first.
Four requirement lines, and no two written the same way
Read the four together and the inconsistency is in the wording as much as the numbers. Two platforms get a chip plus a memory figure, one gets a bare model list, and one gets a single chip.
| Platform | Higher tier requirement | Memory figure published |
|---|---|---|
| iPad | M4 or later | Yes, 12GB or more |
| Mac | M3 or later | Yes, 12GB or more |
| iPhone | 18 Pro, 18 Pro Max, Duo, 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max, Air | No |
| Apple Vision Pro | M5 | No |
The iPhone list is the one with no qualifier at all. It runs to six models, all of them 2025 or 2026 releases, which means it tracks the A20 Pro and A19 Pro generations rather than any figure a buyer can look up.
Why the iPad floor sits a generation above the Mac
Apple has not said. It publishes M4 for iPad and M3 for Mac in the same footnote family, with the same 12GB attached to each, and offers no reasoning for the gap.
What can be said is what the gap does. It means the tier is not simply a memory test, because if 12GB were the whole requirement the chip generation would not need to differ. It also means an iPad and a Mac with the same memory and the same chip generation can land on opposite sides of the line.
The figure Apple does not print where you would look for it
Unified memory is the load-bearing number here, and it does not appear on the pages that carry the requirement. Apple publishes no per-model memory figure on the iPadOS 27 page, the macOS 27 page or the Apple Intelligence page.
On the iPhone side the figure is not published at all. Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro tech specs carry no memory line, and neither do the specs for iPhone Duo, which is why Apple’s top-tier iPhone requirement is a list of names instead.
- iPad and Mac: 12GB or more, with no per-model table published.
- iPhone: no memory figure published, at any tier.
- Apple Vision Pro: M5 named, with no memory figure.
- Server-side features: subject to daily usage limits Apple does not quantify.
What Apple has not said
Apple has not explained the M4 and M3 split, has not published a list of which iPads and Macs clear 12GB, and has not said whether any further feature will join the two already behind this tier.
It has also not priced the expanded access it says is coming. Its own footnote states that expanded access to server-backed features “will be available for a fee in the future”, with no price and no date, a sentence that went live with the rest of the September 9 announcements.
iPadOS 27 and macOS 27 Golden Gate are dated Monday, September 14, free. The voice and Dictation settings that sit behind this tier are the place to check whether your own hardware clears it.
