Apple officially introduced its next wave of operating systems at WWDC 26 on June 9, including iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27 Golden Gate, watchOS 27, and visionOS 27.
The headline feature is a heavily upgraded Siri AI, rebuilt around deeper Apple Intelligence integration. But Apple’s own compatibility notes make one thing pretty clear: the new assistant won’t be available in full across every device that can install the new software.
On iPhone, iOS 27 itself still reaches back to the iPhone 11 and newer models. Full Siri AI support starts much higher, though. Apple lists the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, the iPhone 16 lineup, and later models as supported devices. That leaves the standard iPhone 15 and earlier Plus models outside the full AI feature set.
For iPad users, the baseline is also chip-dependent. Siri AI requires an iPad with an M1 chip or newer, or the iPad mini model equipped with the A17 Pro.
The Mac situation is even more direct. With macOS 27, Apple has fully dropped support for Intel-based Macs. Only Macs running M1 or newer Apple silicon can install the new system and use the Siri AI features tied to it.
Apple Watch compatibility is narrower in a different way. watchOS 27 supports Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, Ultra 2, Ultra 3, and SE 3. Still, the watch-side Siri AI features require pairing with an iPhone that supports the AI features in iOS 27.
Apple Vision Pro is the simplest case: all Vision Pro models support Siri AI.
There’s another layer to the story, though. Even within the list of devices that support the new assistant, Apple has reserved some higher-end on-device AI functions for more powerful hardware. One of Apple’s strongest local AI models is used for personalized control over Siri’s voice speed, emotional expression, and tone.
That advanced on-device model is limited to the iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone Air, iPads with an M4 chip and at least 12GB of unified memory, Macs with an M3 chip and at least 12GB of unified memory, and Apple Vision Pro models powered by the M5 chip.
The standard iPhone 17 reportedly has only 8GB of unified memory, so it doesn’t meet the minimum requirement for that top-tier local model.
In practice, Apple has created three separate access levels for the new experience: basic operating-system compatibility, standard Siri AI support, and the most advanced on-device AI model. So while iOS 27 may run on a fairly wide range of iPhones, the full Apple Intelligence experience is clearly aimed at newer, higher-memory hardware.
