Which iPhones can run AI on the device, and what that means for your documents

The iPhones that qualify

The dividing line is the chip and memory. The system's language models need the A17 Pro or a newer chip and 8 GB of memory, which is why the regular iPhone 15 is excluded while the 15 Pro is included. Apps that use these models, including Quietra, require iOS 26.2 or later.

What on-device AI does well

• Summarizing a document, section by section, at any length when the app splits the work properly.
• Answering questions from a document's own text, with the passages it relied on.
• Pulling out specific facts: names, dates, amounts, identifiers.
• Translating between major languages.
• Rewriting, drafting, and organizing your own notes.

Where it falls short

• World knowledge: a phone-sized model knows far less than a large cloud model about current events, obscure facts, or specialized trivia.
• Long chains of reasoning: multi-step math or logic puzzles are hit and miss.
• Speed on very long documents: a 300-page report takes minutes, not seconds, because every section is processed on the phone.

The practical rule: for questions about the world, a cloud model is better; for work on your own documents, an on-device model is good enough and keeps the documents private.

Why this matters for private documents

A cloud AI must receive the document to work on it, which means a server, a retention period, and people who can read it under some conditions. An on-device model never receives it; the document stays in the app's storage on the phone, and the app can refuse network access entirely. That is privacy by architecture: there is no policy to trust because there is no transmission to begin with.

How to check that an app really stays on the device

Turn on airplane mode and use the feature. If it works, the processing was local. If the app asks for a connection, it was not. Quietra passes this test for every document feature; the only network actions are ones you start yourself, such as activating a purchase or choosing to download its optional larger model.

Common questions

Does on-device AI drain the battery?

Processing a long document uses the phone's neural hardware for a few minutes, comparable to a video call. Short tasks are negligible.

Is on-device AI less accurate than cloud AI?

For broad knowledge, yes. For summarizing, extracting, and translating text that is in front of it, the gap is small, and the privacy gain is total.

Will older iPhones get it later?

The requirement is hardware (chip and memory), so iPhones below the 15 Pro will not gain the system models through updates.

Which iPhones does Quietra support?

iPhone 15 Pro and later, iPhone 16 and iPhone 17 models, on iOS 26.2 or later. Everything runs on the device.