I was in charge of live-blogging WWDC 2026 earlier this week, and keeping up with Apple’s device requirements for iOS 27, Apple Intelligence, and Siri AI felt like a job for someone with a photographic memory.

All three software packages have different entry criteria (and that’s to say nothing of iPadOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate), so after the show, I published an iOS 27 and Siri AI compatibility explainer, which will tell you whether your iPhone can support Apple’s upcoming iOS features.

I’m not going to repeat all those device requirements here, but a big point of confusion has been the exclusivity of Apple’s "most powerful on-device model", known officially as Apple Foundation Models (AFM) Core Advanced. Only three iPhones — the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air — have enough RAM (12GB) to access this model and, therefore, the very best version of Siri AI. But what does that mean, exactly?

According to Apple's press release on Siri AI, the two features exclusive to AFM Core Advanced are voice customization and more advanced systemwide dictation.

The former gives you the ability to customize the expressiveness and pace of Siri’s voice — anyone with access to Siri AI can still choose from a set number of Siri voices, but you’ll need an iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air to make Siri speak faster, slower, and with more or less enthusiasm.

The second feature — more advanced systemwide dictation — is arguably the more significant. It essentially means those top-end iPhones are more effective at converting speech into accurate text than older or less advanced iPhones. This updated dictation engine "automatically handles capitalization, punctuation, and formatting as [you] speak," Apple says, meaning you can "speak naturally and trust that [your] words will appear clearly, accurately, and as intended".

To be clear, this doesn’t mean that if you own, say, an iPhone 15 Pro, your Siri will be incapable of converting speech into text. Yes, Siri has been awful at doing just that in the past — anyone who’s tried to send a message using CarPlay will know what I'm talking about — but my understanding is that Siri AI, in being an entirely new version of Siri, will bring improved dictation at a foundational level (i.e. to all compatible iPhones).

But for those who rely on dictation to send messages or navigate their iPhone hands-free, the difference in dictation capabilities between the best iPhones and older models may be more consequential.

The capability gap will get bigger

At this point, it’s not entirely clear whether Apple’s AFM Core Advanced model will also result in noticeably faster query resolution for the iPhones equipped with it. Dictation is not the same as interpretation — Apple has only said that these iPhones will be better at the former, not the latter.

But given that AFM Core Advanced is a 20-billion-parameter model that only exists on iPhones with 12GB of RAM, it figures that these iPhones will be able to perform AI tasks more quickly than those equipped with Apple’s 3-billion-parameter AFM Core model and only 8GB of RAM.

Incidentally, more RAM also facilitates faster app loading and more seamless switching between apps, though the differences between iPhones on those fronts are already negligible (the iPhone 15 Pro feels just as fast to navigate as the iPhone Air, for instance). What's more, iOS 27 is making app loading and switching faster for all compatible iPhones, so having more or less RAM isn't a cause for concern outside of AI.

At the moment, then, it looks like owners of the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, and iPhone Air are simply getting a more customizable Siri, and one more capable of converting speech into text.

That’s not ideal for iPhone 16 Pro or iPhone 17 users who thought they were buying a phone “built for Apple Intelligence” — lawyers at the ready! — but these iPhones are capable of running all the Apple Intelligence features revealed at the software’s announcement in 2024 (so, actually, put down your pitchforks).

Of course, in classic marketing fashion, Apple’s small print on the matter leaves the door ajar for more features to be made exclusive to the AFM Core Advanced model: “Apple’s most powerful on-device model and the features it enables, like expressive voices and more advanced dictation, are available on…,” reads the press release. ‘Like’ is the operative word there — more hardware-exclusive features are surely coming down the line, ones which require more compute power than Apple’s base AFM Core model can provide.

But for the moment, I do think the furore is a little overblown. If you own an Apple Intelligence-compatible iPhone, you’re getting all but two of the features announced at WWDC 2026.

Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

Axel is TechRadar's Phones Editor, reporting on everything from the latest Apple developments to newest AI breakthroughs as part of the site's Mobile Computing vertical. Having previously written for publications including Esquire and FourFourTwo, Axel is well-versed in the applications of technology beyond the desktop, and his coverage extends from general reporting and analysis to in-depth interviews and opinion.

Axel studied for a degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick before joining TechRadar in 2020, where he earned an NCTJ qualification as part of the company’s inaugural digital training scheme.