Apple Intelligence may become mandatory in iOS and macOS 27

Until now, Apple has kept Apple Intelligence — the suite of artificial intelligence tools baked into its operating systems — entirely optional. If you don’t want it, you can simply skip it during a new device setup or when updating the system.

That show of respect for its customers may change with iOS/macOS 27. Reports suggest that, at least in the first beta, Apple Intelligence is mandatory:

“So what’s the problem?”, you might ask. Apple’s AI takes up several gigabytes of storage and leaves less headroom for RAM. Not a big deal if you’re running a beefy Mac. I suspect it will be for mine, with its modest 256 GB of storage and a mere 8 GB of RAM 🥲

The Register points to another issue. With the new Siri AI, Spotlight — the system-wide search feature — changes how it behaves. It now attempts to answer queries that previously returned straightforward, predictable results.

Brandon Vigliarolo, the post’s author, says he’s used to using Spotlight to kick off a Google search. Siri AI now tries to answer the query itself, drawing on Gemini’s “brain”:

Overall, the experience reminds me of Google’s infamous and often wrong AI Overviews, which push actual search results down the page in favor of information force-fed by Google Gemini.

There’s still hope that Apple will reverse course and continue allowing Apple Intelligence to be disabled in the version 27 operating systems.

Thanks for the tip, Cesar and Thiago!