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Apple Silicon Exec Explains Mac Mini AI Demand and On-Device Future

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Re: Apple Silicon Exec Explains Mac Mini AI Demand and On-Device Future

#151

Post by grosswait »

auston wrote: post #143
huragok wrote: post #24

If I had the capital I’d make an household inference appliance. No peripherals except Ethernet, integrated compute (cpu+gpu+mem) and secondary storage (+mobo, psu). No accoutrements, just the minimum amount of hardware to run a model as a utility. Even the appliance faceplate would be a display showing stats like an old HiFi stereo. Edit: something like a series of modules consisting of a RISC-V CPU + Vortex GPGPU +…

Here you go: https://www.truffle.net/

I lasted about 25 seconds on that site. Way too much friction for me to endure just trying to figure out what it is

Re: Apple Silicon Exec Explains Mac Mini AI Demand and On-Device Future

#152

Post by WillAdams »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #20

Apple could probably sell a machine starting at $10,000 if they architected it as the sole place one’s Private Cloud Compute [1] ran. It would need a path to a $2,500 machine, I think. But this is a niche I don’t think another consumer-facing brand could do like Apple. [1] https://security.apple.com/blog/private-cloud-compute/

Ages ago, back when the Macs would come out, my co-workers and I would take a bit of time to configure the most expensive possible configuration --- time was, it was pretty easy to hit six figures, but over time, that has gradually come down.

Re: Apple Silicon Exec Explains Mac Mini AI Demand and On-Device Future

#153

Post by ramijames »

wiether wrote: post #127
_glass wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's only because you can send texts via imessage on a macmini. that's it.

Buying a new computer at +$500 just to have iMessage access feels insane to me. OpenClaw supports all the mainstream (and free) chat apps like Discord, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram... None of them requiring a MacOS machine. Is it a lack of knowledge from the users or do they really value iMessage integration that much?

And configuring a bot for Telegram is incredibly easy.

Re: Apple Silicon Exec Explains Mac Mini AI Demand and On-Device Future

#154

Post by fellowmartian »

throw1234567891 wrote: post #84
onion2k wrote: post #7

Running models on-device on a Mac is immensely annoying though. Figuring out what will work out of BF16, FP8, BF16+FP8, NVFP4, INT8, GGUF ... the list goes on ... is 'non-obvious' at best. Apple do little to support with tooling. There's MLX, but unless you're happy to transform a model to that format yourself you'll be lagging a long way behind. Apps like LMStudio, Ollama, Draw Things, etc do a great job of simplify…

Converting a model to mlx is literally a git clone and mlx_lm.convert. 5 minute operation after clone.

Or just ask any model to do it for you.

Re: Apple Silicon Exec Explains Mac Mini AI Demand and On-Device Future

#155

Post by mlrtime »

Aperocky wrote: post #12
majestik wrote: post #8

Ok, I didn’t want to take the bait but this one’s just too much. > “He also described a shift toward running AI locally rather than in the cloud – a move motivated by privacy, security, and the rising cost of inference as agents consume more tokens.” Classic Apple. No more just beating the “security and privacy” drum, now its “tokens are expensive!” Cloud scary. Cloud expensive. Mac good. Buy Mac! > “He also singled…

But why should apple invest in developing their own models? Why would it be correct? Or phrase it in a very similar ask, why don't they invest in power plants? The model space is truly crowded, what do they gain or recover suppose they are SOTA? Across the Pacific they are pumping out free models that are only 6-12 months behind. What business sense does it make for Apple to develop their own models?

The average apple user doesn't care about models, they care about inference.

I agree, apple shouldn't invest in their own models. But they should have close to the best inference + end user design.

Re: Apple Silicon Exec Explains Mac Mini AI Demand and On-Device Future

#156

Post by hilariously »

charcircuit wrote: post #118
sajithdilshan wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that would be more for enterprise usage. I cannot imagine a personal computing usage which can justify a 10k machine.

Apple is a premium brand with high brand loyalty. Do you not think even 1 billionaire would want something like that? Even to just say that they bought it. Apple could sell things at a price point much more than $10k.

There's only so many billionaires and at Apple's scale you would not offer such a product for public sale even if you do custom builds for the rich and famous.

Apple makes product lines with assembly lines, its not a hand fab or custom build type of place.

Re: Apple Silicon Exec Explains Mac Mini AI Demand and On-Device Future

#157

Post by mlrtime »

Citizen_Lame wrote: post #49
fsuts wrote: post #47

Apple doesn’t have an ads business, and it is inevitable that Google/openai/Anthropic are going to seek to monetise consumer ai via ads. So the ad free Apple on device experience will be welcome.

What does this mean? Apple ads bring in 8 billion revenue a year.

Advertising accounts for about 1% to 2% of Apple's total overall revenue, bringing in roughly $8.5 to $12 billion annually.

1-2% is rounding error.

Re: Apple Silicon Exec Explains Mac Mini AI Demand and On-Device Future

#158

Post by swader999 »

IsTom wrote: post #54
uejfiweun wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think the supply crunch is short-term?

If demand doesn't fall down or current manufacturers supply go up, somebody (presumably in China) will spin up fabs. Apple wanted to use blacklisted Chinese RAM already.

It's the euv machines that are the bottleneck. Pretty hard to ramp those up any faster in the next few years.

Re: Apple Silicon Exec Explains Mac Mini AI Demand and On-Device Future

#159

Post by swader999 »

huragok wrote: post #24

If I had the capital I’d make an household inference appliance. No peripherals except Ethernet, integrated compute (cpu+gpu+mem) and secondary storage (+mobo, psu). No accoutrements, just the minimum amount of hardware to run a model as a utility. Even the appliance faceplate would be a display showing stats like an old HiFi stereo. Edit: something like a series of modules consisting of a RISC-V CPU + Vortex GPGPU +…

It could heat your home in the winter and your pool in the summer.

Re: Apple Silicon Exec Explains Mac Mini AI Demand and On-Device Future

#160

Post by lucky_cloud »

tomaskafka wrote: post #119
embedding-shape wrote: post #115

> "people often want a system that's under their control, isolated from their primary machine, and capable of running 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Brooks. "A Mac mini is an amazing system for that," he added. These execs are so out of touch they believe Apple hardware to be "a system that's under their control", how does it come to this? Besides, a VM without bi-directional sharing of data gives you prett…

The remote access story for macOS is absolute sadness, without Jump Desktop there would be zero performant ways to access that “system under my control”. And all of that because Tim Apple fears any feature that could mean people could have less than one iDevice per person.

I'm curious what you mean. I have been accessing Macs remotely over SSH and VNC for like 20 years and it's always been easy and as performant as the network would allow.
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