Apple introduces M4 chip • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#441

Post by Naomarik » Tue, May 07, 2024, 5:34 PM UTC

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.

Didn't have to look long to find a comment mirroring how I feel about these devices. To me it feels like they're just adding power to an artificially castrated device I can barely do anything with. See no reason to upgrade from my original iPad Pro that's not really useful for anything. Just an overpowered device running phone software.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#442

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 07, 2024, 5:34 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #420

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) ?

I don't know, but the M3 MBP I got from work already gives the impression of using barely any power at all. I'm really impressed by Apple Silicon, and I'm seriously reconsidering my decision from years ago to never ever buy Apple again. Why doesn't everybody else use chips like these?

[deleted]

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#443

Post by lenerdenator » Tue, May 07, 2024, 5:36 PM UTC

So long as it lets me play some of the less-intense 00's-10's era PC games in some sort of virtualization framework at decent framerates one day, and delivers great battery life as a backend web dev workstation-on-the-go the next, it's a good chip. The M2 Pro does.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#444

Post by bvrmn » Tue, May 07, 2024, 5:37 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #227

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) ?

IME Apple has always been the most honest when it makes performance claims. LIke when they said an Macbook Air would last 10+ hours and third-party reviewers would get 8-9+ hours. All the while, Dell or HP would claim 19 hours and you'd be lucky to get 2 eg [1]. As for CPU power use, of course that doesn't translate into doubling battery life because there are other components. And yes, it seems the OLED display uses…

BTW I get 19 hours from DELL XPS and Latitude. It's Linux with custom DE and Vim as IDE though.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#445

Post by hmottestad » Tue, May 07, 2024, 5:37 PM UTC

whynotminot wrote: post #412

adrian_b wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Most Powerful Neural Engine Ever While it is true that the claimed performance for M4 is better than for the current Intel Meteor Lake and AMD Hawk Point, it is also significantly lower (e.g. around half) than the AI performance claimed for the laptop CPU+GPU+NPU models that both Intel and AMD will introduce in the second half of this year (Arrow Lake and Strix Point).

> will introduce Incredible that in the future there will be better chips than what Apple is releasing now.

Don’t worry. It’s Intel we’re talking about. They may say that it’s coming out in 6 months, but that’s never stopped them from releasing it in 3 years instead.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#446

Post by frankchn » Tue, May 07, 2024, 5:38 PM UTC

stonemetal12 wrote: post #209

Lalabadie wrote: post #22

Key values in the press release: - Up to 1.5x the CPU speed of iPad Pro's previous M2 chip - Octane gets up to 4x the speed compared to M2 - At comparable performance, M4 consumes half the power of M2 - High-performance AI engine, that claims 60x the speed of Apple's first engine (A11 Bionic)

Apple claimed M3 was 1.35 the speed of the M2. So the M3 vs M4 comparison isn't that impressive. Certainly not bad by any means, just pointing out why it is compared to the M2 here.

The other reason it is compared to the M2 is that there are no iPads with M3s in them, so it makes sense to compare to the processor used in the previous generation product.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#447

Post by hot_gril » Tue, May 07, 2024, 5:38 PM UTC

daniel31x13 wrote: post #46

Well at the end of the day the processors are bottlenecked by its OS. What real value does an iPad bring that a typical iPhone + Mac combo misses? (Other than being a digital notebook…)

My wife has a new iPad for grad school, and I'm convinced it's mainly an extra category for some customers to spend more money on if they already have a Mac and iPhone. The school supplied it, then she spent $400+ on the keyboard and other damn dongles to bring the hardware sorta up to par with a laptop, hoping to replace her 2013 MBP.

In the end, she still has to rely on the MBP daily because there's always something the iPad can't do. Usually something small like a website not fully working on it.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#448

Post by sudosysgen » Tue, May 07, 2024, 5:39 PM UTC

smith7018 wrote: post #375

NorwegianDude wrote: post #264

> M4 has Apple’s fastest Neural Engine ever, capable of up to 38 trillion operations per second, which is faster than the neural processing unit of any AI PC today. I always wonder what crazy meds Apple employees are on. Two RTX 4090s is quite common for hobbyist use, and that is 1321 TOPS each, making two over 69 times more than what Apple claims to be the fastest in the world. That performance is literally less tha…

You’re calling $3,600 worth of GPUs “quite common for hobbyist use” and then comparing an iPad to a $40,000 AI-centric GPU.

It's almost 70x more powerful. A 4 year old 3070 laptop was cheaper when it came out and has about 200 TOPS, 7 times as much. It's just factually incorrect to call it "faster than any AI PC", it's far slower than a cheaper laptop from 4 years ago.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#449

Post by tiltowait » Tue, May 07, 2024, 5:40 PM UTC

stonemetal12 wrote: post #209

Lalabadie wrote: post #22

Key values in the press release: - Up to 1.5x the CPU speed of iPad Pro's previous M2 chip - Octane gets up to 4x the speed compared to M2 - At comparable performance, M4 consumes half the power of M2 - High-performance AI engine, that claims 60x the speed of Apple's first engine (A11 Bionic)

Apple claimed M3 was 1.35 the speed of the M2. So the M3 vs M4 comparison isn't that impressive. Certainly not bad by any means, just pointing out why it is compared to the M2 here.

It seems pretty reasonable to compare it against the last-model iPad, which it's replacing.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#450

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 07, 2024, 5:42 PM UTC

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.

[deleted]