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Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

macrumors.com

41–50 of 78 posts

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#41
post #19

My bet, Apple begins designing chips specific to each product line. Meaning, - iPad get their own unique chip - MacPro, unique chip - etc And this iPad rumor is just the first Apple Silicon unique product chip.

Why does the iPad Pro require a unique chip from a base Mac?

Remember that it costs tens/hundreds of millions to tape out a chip.

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the first time in a long time, consumer hardware is not even close to being fast enough for a new type of mass applications: GenAI. People have stopped caring about consumer chips because they have been "good enough" for a long time. Hardware is getting exciting again. We need significantly more compute, memory bandwidth, and memory capacity. There are huge bottlenecks everywhere.

For GenAI, I wonder if we need consumer hardware to be that powerful. Isn't this exactly what "the cloud" is for?

I think the best models will always require "the cloud" but there will be plenty of use cases where "good enough" local LLMs need to be on-device.

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the first time in a long time, consumer hardware is not even close to being fast enough for a new type of mass applications: GenAI. People have stopped caring about consumer chips because they have been "good enough" for a long time. Hardware is getting exciting again. We need significantly more compute, memory bandwidth, and memory capacity. There are huge bottlenecks everywhere.

For GenAI, I wonder if we need consumer hardware to be that powerful. Isn't this exactly what "the cloud" is for?

It depends. If you're OpenAI, consumer hardware should never be powerful enough to run local models. If you're Apple, it should.

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#45
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think that whole major, unpatchable security flaw thing could also play a part? I could see them wanting to put distance between themselves on that fast too.

M3s have a flag to disable the caching vulnerable to GoFetch on p-cores. M1s and M2s are the ones that have no mitigation besides running workloads on slower e-cores.

That‘s not true DMP can be disabled on M2 chips and probably also on the M1 chips. This was found by Hector Martin (@marcan) and will probably supported in Asahi Linux.

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#46
post #19

My bet, Apple begins designing chips specific to each product line. Meaning, - iPad get their own unique chip - MacPro, unique chip - etc And this iPad rumor is just the first Apple Silicon unique product chip.

They already do this with fuses to lock each chip to a specific iBoot, OS, and release[0] set.

Changing the configuration of the chip is unnecessary. iPhones, iPads, and Macs use roughly the same balance of compute. The thing that does need to change is how many cores in each compute device, but they already do this with A17 vs. M3 vs. M3 Pro/Max/Ultra. That already segregates the product lines a bit: iPads aren't getting anything bigger than an M3/M4, Mac Pros aren't getting anything smaller than an M3 Max, etc.

[0] e.g. production devices vs. Apple internal devkits vs. that weird Security Research Device they released a few years ago to compete with Corellium

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#47
post #35
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are professionals in artwork?

Art professionals usually don't use iPads although I'm sure some do. Most seem to prefer Wacom. Unlike, eg a laptop, portability isn't usually a major professional need for an art workstation.

To the contrary, art professionals use the top-tier iPads professionally more than anyone else, in my experience.

You use a Wacom for some things, but the iPad has the gigantic advantage that your image is directly underneath your Pencil. And, of course, that you can take it with you.

The iPad isn't a substitute for a workstation. But it's a huge complement -- both for creating things visually, as well as managing/showcasing all your media on the go. Professional artists are often going to a lot of meetings with different clients or team members around the city.

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#48
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

M3s have a flag to disable the caching vulnerable to GoFetch on p-cores. M1s and M2s are the ones that have no mitigation besides running workloads on slower e-cores.

That‘s not true DMP can be disabled on M2 chips and probably also on the M1 chips. This was found by Hector Martin (@marcan) and will probably supported in Asahi Linux.

That's great news. Direct link for anyone else not up to date: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/112238385679496096

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#49

They need to stop calling these pro devices. They are barely functional for anything beyond casual use and artwork

Apple has never used "pro" to mean professional software engineers.

It's always been meant for professional artists. Whether graphic artists, music producers, video editors, 3D artists, or what have you.

So it's strange to me that you treat "artwork" as an exception.

These are very much pro. That they're extremely functional for art is the whole point.

Re: Bloomberg: "Strong possibility" of M4 debuting on May 7 with new iPad Pro

#50

Having an iPad Pro with an M1, I grow increasingly frustrated each year with how incapable my iPad is compared to my Macbook/Linux laptops. iPadOS still feels like iOS with some visual tweaks to the larger screen real estate. It’s absolutely not a laptop killer for a sysadmin or developer (unless your preferred language is Swift). Maybe it’s a laptop killer for creative professionals? I think my iPad is an excellent…

Same. Don't buy an iPad! For real. It's a ridiculous device. Effectively no more useful than any other cheap tablet. Those tempting hardware features, you won't be able to use them in the end anyway, because of software limitations. You just can't do serious work with the iPad in practice. Trust me, after a short honeymoon period, and another few weeks of frustration, it will end up collecting dust and you will only ever rarely use it to watch movies at most.

If you buy one still, don't forget to turn it off completely, or you will find it someday, the battery completely drained and you realize it must have been months. Not good for battery health.

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