> Apple can’t rely on every device possessing enough power to perform inference locally. This means inference will be outsourced to a remote cloud machine.
If you go look at Apple's site https://www.apple.com/apple-intelligence/ and scroll down, you get:
Apple Intelligence is compatible with these devices. iPhone 16 A18 iPhone 16 Plus A18 iPhone 16 Pro Max A18 Pro iPhone 16 Pro A18 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max A17 Pro iPhone 15 Pro A17 Pro iPad Pro M1 and later iPad Air M1 and later iPad mini A17 Pro MacBook Air M1 and later MacBook Pro M1 and later iMac M1 and later Mac mini M1 and later Mac Studio M1 Max and later Mac Pro M2 Ultra
If you don't have one of those devices, Apple did the obvious thing and disabled features on devices that don't have the hardware to do it.
While Apple has this whole private server architecture, they're not sending iMessages off device for summarization, that's happening on device.