Why does Apple’s latest music feature have such high system requirements?
Apple Music now offers a new feature called Sing. It sounds great. This is an extension of Apple Music’s time synced lyrics feature. It animated lyrics so you can sing along and allows you to adjust the vocal level with a slider, depending on how confident your singing is.
It’s a very slick feature but not everyone will get to use it due to surprisingly high-end system requirements. Other than being an Apple Music subscriber, you’ll need a device from the last few years. These are the devices that support this new feature:
iPhone
- iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max
- iPhone 14 Plus
- iPhone 14
- iPhone 13 Pro/Pro Max
- iPhone 13
- iPhone 13 mini
- iPhone 12 Pro/Pro Max
- iPhone 12
- iPhone 12 mini
- iPhone 11 Pro/Pro Max
- iPhone 11
- iPhone SE (3rd Generation and Later)
iPad
- iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation and later)
- iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation and later)
- iPad Air (4th generation and later)
- iPad (9th generation and later)
- iPad mini (6th generation and later)
Apple TV
Based on that list, the Apple TV 4K from 2021, iPad Pro from 2020, and iPad Air from 2019 aren’t supported. Neither are Macs. The list suggests that the feature requires an A13 Bionic or newer processor, at least 4GB of RAM, and the third-gen neural engines. The 2nd-gen iPhone SE had an A13 processor, but only 3GB of RAM. This means that it is no longer available. The Apple TV 4K, which was launched in 2021, only has an Apple A12 chip.
The neural engine seems to also have to meet these strict requirements. Apple introduced the A11 chip that had a dual-core design and could process 600 billion operations per seconds. The A12 was a significant improvement with 8 cores, 5 trillion operations per seconds, while the A13 introduced a third-generation engine with 20 percent faster matrix multiplication and 15 percent less power than A12 Bionic. Despite having the same 8 core design, the A13 was 20 percent faster and used 15 percent less power. Apple Music Sing, which adjusts the vocals in realtime, requires a newer third-gen model.
This feature will be included in the iOS 16.2 update and tvOS 16.2 update that are expected to hit devices next week.
