iOS 18.2 doubles storage needs for Apple Intelligence – and users aren’t thrilled [Video]

In context: When Apple Intelligence launched last year with iOS 18.1, the company announced a 4GB storage requirement for its AI-powered features, including Visual Intelligence and Siri with ChatGPT integration. At the time, the requirement seemed reasonable, given that much of the processing occurs locally on the device to prioritize user privacy.

Fast forward to last month’s release of iOS 18.2, and the storage requirement for Apple Intelligence has jumped to a staggering 7GB of free space per device, according to Apple’s website. That’s nearly double the original requirement in just a few months.

The likely reason? All the shiny new AI features packed into iOS 18.2. These include the Genmoji custom emoji creator, an AI image generator called Playground, the Visual Intelligence feature for identifying objects and places, and, of course, ChatGPT for text composition alongside a …