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Apple introduces M4 chip

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Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#381

Post by asow92 »

elpakal wrote: post #369
asow92 wrote: post #332

Why are we running these high end CPUs on tablets without the ability to run pro apps like Xcode? Until I can run Xcode on an iPad (not Swift Playgrounds), it's a pass for me. Hear me out: I don't want to bring both an iPad and Macbook on trips, but I need Xcode. Because of this, I have to pick the Macbook every time. I want an iPad, but the iPad doesn't want me.

"It's not you, it's me" - Xcode to the iPad

In all seriousness, you're right. Sandboxing Xcode but making it fully featured is surely a nightmare engineering problem for Apple. However, I feel like some kind of containerized macOS running in the app sandbox could be possible.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#382

Post by masklinn »

BurningFrog wrote: post #103
cs702 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Potentially > 2x greater battery life for the same amount of compute! That is pretty crazy. Or am I missing something?

Is the CPU/GPU really dominating power consumption that much?

Nah, GP is off their rocker. For the workloads in question the SOC's power draw is a rounding error, low single-digit percent.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#384

Post by Aurornis »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #42

Call me crazy, but I want all that power in a 7" tablet. I like 7" tablets most because they feel less clunky to carry around and take with you. Same with 13" laptops, I'm willing to sacrifice on screen real estate for saving myself from the back pain of carrying a 15" or larger laptop. Some of this is insanely impressive. I wonder how big the OS ROM (or whatever) is with all these models. For context, even if the en…

> Call me crazy, but I want all that power in a 7" tablet. I like 7" tablets most because they feel less clunky to carry around and take with you.

iPhone Pro Max screen size is 6.7" and the the upcoming iPhone 16 Pro Max is rumored to be 6.9" with 12GB of RAM. That's your 7" tablet right there.

The thing is - You're an extreme edge case of an edge case. Furthermore, I'm guessing if Apple did roll out a 7" tablet, you'd find some other thing where it isn't exactly 100% perfectly meeting your desired specifications. For example, Apple is about to release a high powered 6.9" tablet-like device (the iPhone 16 Pro Max) but I'm guessing there's another reason why it doesn't fit your needs.

Which is why companies like Apple ignore these niche use cases and focus on mainstream demands. The niche demands always gain a lot of internet chatter, but when the products come out they sell very poorly.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#385

Post by raydev »

philistine wrote: post #141
izacus wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple usually massively exaggerates their tech spec comparison - is it REALLY half the power use of all times (so we'll get double the battery life) or is it half the power use in some scenarios (so we'll get like... 15% more battery life total) ?

Quickly looking at the press release, it seems to have the same comparisons as in the video. None of Apple's comparisons today are between the M3 and M4. They are ALL comparing the M2 and M4. Why? It's frustrating, but today Apple replaced a product with an M2 with a product with an M4. Apple always compares product to product, never component to component when it comes to processors. So those specs are far more impr…

> They are ALL comparing the M2 and M4. Why?

Well, the obvious answer is that those with older machines are more likely to upgrade than those with newer machines. The market for insta-upgraders is tiny.

edit: And perhaps an even more obvious answer: there are no iPads that contained the M3, so the comparison would be more useless. The M4 was just launched today exclusively in iPads.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#386

Post by 0x457 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #253
bitwize wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ultimately, does it matter? Michelin-starred restaurants not only have top-tier chefs. They have buyers who negotiate with food suppliers to get the best ingredients they can at the lowest prices they can. Having a preferential relationship with a good supplier is as important to the food quality and the health of the business as having a good chef to prepare the dishes. Apple has top-tier engineering talent but they…

Qualcomm is also with TSMC and their newer 4nm processor is expected to stay competitive with the M series. If the magic comes mostly from TSMC, there's a good chance for these claims to be true and to have a series of better chips coming on the other platforms as well.

Does Qualcomm have any new CPU cores besides that one they can't make ARM due to licensing?

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#387

Post by SkyPuncher »

pier25 wrote: post #47

This is great but why even bother with the M3? The M3 Macs were released only 7 months ago.

So far, I haven’t seen any comparison between the iPad M4 and the computer M3. Everything was essentially compared to the last iPad chip, the M2.

Your laptop M3 chip is still probably more powerful than this. The laptop M4 will be faster, but not groundbreaking faster.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#389

Post by smrtinsert »

praseodym wrote: post #10

"With these improvements to the CPU and GPU, M4 maintains Apple silicon’s industry-leading performance per watt. M4 can deliver the same performance as M2 using just half the power. And compared with the latest PC chip in a thin and light laptop, M4 can deliver the same performance using just a fourth of the power." That's an incredible improvement in just a few years. I wonder how much of that is Apple engineering a…

Breathtaking

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#390

Post by mananaysiempre »

Aurornis wrote: post #342
KeplerBoy wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these things will ever get MacOS support it will be useless with 8 GB of Ram. Such a waste of nice components.

I have a minimum of 64GB on my all my main developer machines (home, work, laptop), but I have a spare laptop with only 8GB of RAM for lightweight travel. Despite the entire internet telling me it would be "unusable" and a disaster and a complete disaster, it's actually 100% perfectly fine. I can run IDEs, Slack, Discord, Chrome, and do dev work without a problem. I can't run a lot of VMs or compile giant projects wi…

For me personally, it’s not an issue of being out of touch. I did, in fact, use a 2014 Macbook with an i5 CPU and 16 GB of RAM for nearly a decade and know how often I hit swap and/or OOM on it even without attempting multicore shenanigans which its processor couldn’t have managed anyway.

It’s rather an issue of selling deliberately underpowered hardware for no good reason other than to sell actually up-to-date versions for a difference in price that has no relation to the actual availability or price of the components. The sheer disconnect from any kind of reality offends me as a person whose job and alleged primary competency is to recognize reality then bend it to one’s will.

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