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Apple introduces M4 chip

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Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#541

Post by asow92 »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #479
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.

> I don't want to bring both an iPad and Macbook on trips, but I need ______ Why not just make the iPad run MacOS and throw iPadOS into the garbage?

I like some UX aspects of iPadOS, but need the functionality of macOS for work.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#542

Post by hosteur »

paulpan wrote: post #183
EduardoBautista wrote: post #13

The 256gb and 512gb models have 8gb of ram. The 1tb and 2tb models have 16gb. Not a fan of tying ram to storage. https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/specs/

I don't think it's strictly for price gouging/segmentation purposes. On the Macbooks (running MacOS), RAM has been used as data cache to speed up data read/write performance until the actual SSD storage operation completes. It makes sense for Apple to account for with higher RAM spec for the 1TB/2TB configurations.

> I don't think it's strictly for price gouging/segmentation purposes.

I think it is strictly for that purpose.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#543

Post by bamboozled »

andsoitis wrote: post #539
rsp1984 wrote: post #457

Together with next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, the high-performance GPU, and higher-bandwidth unified memory, the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI. In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending dat…

> In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending data up to the cloud for processing). Their primary business goal is to sell hardware. Yes, they’ve diversified into services and being a shopping mall for all, but it is about selling lu…

As soon as the privacy thing goes away, I'd say a major part of their customer base goes away too. Most people use android so they don't get "hacked" if Apple is doing the hacking, I'd just buy a cheaper alternative.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#544

Post by mort96 »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #491
mort96 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I wish my iPad's chip was slower! I can't do anything other than watch videos and use drawing programs on an iPad, why does it need a big expensive power hungry and environmentally impactful CPU when one 1/10 the speed would do? If I could actually do something with an iPad there would be a different discussion, but the operating system is so incredibly gimped that the most demanding task it's really su…

> Environmentally impactful CPU when one 1/10 the speed would do Apple's started to roll out green energy charging to devices: https://support.apple.com/en-us/108068 If I had to ballpark estimate this, your iPad probably uses less energy per year than a strand of incandescent holiday lights does in a week. Maybe somebody can work out that math.

The environmental concerns I have aren't really power consumption. Making all these CPUs takes a lot of resources.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#545

Post by robbomacrae »

joelthelion wrote: post #461
rsp1984 wrote: post #457

Together with next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, the high-performance GPU, and higher-bandwidth unified memory, the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI. In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending dat…

>n case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) I'm curious: is anyone seriously using apple hardware to train Ai models at the moment? Obviously not the big players, but I imagine it might be a viable option for Ai engineers in smaller, less ambitious companies.

I don't think this is what you meant but it matches the spec: federated learning is being used by Apple to train models for various applications and some of that happens on device (iphones/ipads) with your personal data before its hashed and sent up to the mothership model anonymously.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/12/11/131629/apple-ai-...

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#546

Post by Tiktaalik »

aurareturn wrote: post #530
themagician wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to being old! Watch a 20-year old creative work on an iPad and you will quickly change your mind. Watch someone who has, "never really used a desktop, [I] just use an iPad" work in Procreate or LumaFusion. The iPad has amazing software. Better, in many ways, than desktop alternatives if you know how to use it. There are some things they can't do, and the workflow can be less flexible or full featured in some…

I'm with you. I think HN (and conversational internet) disproportionally contains more laptop people than the public. A lot of of the younger generation does all their work on their phone and tablet and does not have a computer.

If those younger folks are as the parent says in the creative sector.

iPad has been a workflow gamechanger for folks who use photoshop etc but users are still prevented from coding on it.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#547

Post by robbomacrae »

krunck wrote: post #460
rsp1984 wrote: post #457

Together with next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, the high-performance GPU, and higher-bandwidth unified memory, the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI. In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending dat…

Yes, that would be great. But without the ability for us to verify this who's to say they won't use the edge resources(your computer and electricity) to process data(your data) and then send the results to their data center? It would certainly save them a lot of money.

They already do this. It's called federated learning and its a way for them to use your data to help personalize the model for you and also (to a much lesser extent) the global model for everyone whilst still respecting your data privacy. It's not to save money, it's so they can keep your data private on device and still use ML.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/12/11/131629/apple-ai-...

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#548

Post by avianlyric »

joelthelion wrote: post #461
rsp1984 wrote: post #457

Together with next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, the high-performance GPU, and higher-bandwidth unified memory, the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI. In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending dat…

>n case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) I'm curious: is anyone seriously using apple hardware to train Ai models at the moment? Obviously not the big players, but I imagine it might be a viable option for Ai engineers in smaller, less ambitious companies.

Apple are. Their “Personal Voice” feature fine tunes a voice model on device using recordings of your own voice.

An older example is the “Hey Siri” model, which is fine tuned to your specific voice.

But with regards to on device training, I don’t think anyone is seriously looking at training a model from scratch on device, that doesn’t make much sense. But taking models and fine tuning them to specific users makes a whole ton of sense, and an obvious approach to producing “personal” AI assistants.

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/104993

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#549

Post by serial_dev »

andsoitis wrote: post #539
rsp1984 wrote: post #457

Together with next-generation ML accelerators in the CPU, the high-performance GPU, and higher-bandwidth unified memory, the Neural Engine makes M4 an outrageously powerful chip for AI. In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending dat…

> In case it is not abundantly clear by now: Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. This is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy (which would be at odds with sending data up to the cloud for processing). Their primary business goal is to sell hardware. Yes, they’ve diversified into services and being a shopping mall for all, but it is about selling lu…

It doesn't need to stay true forever.

The alternative is Google / Android devices and OpenAI wrapper apps, both of which usually offer a half baked UI, poor privacy practices, and a completely broken UX when the internet connection isn't perfect.

Pair this with the completely subpar Android apps, Google dropping support for an app about once a month, and suddenly I'm okay with the lesser of two evils.

I know they aren't running a charity, I even hypothesized that Apple just can't build good services so they pivoted to focusing on this fake "privacy" angle. In the end, iPhones are likely going to be better for edge AI than whatever is out there, so I'm looking forward to this.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#550

Post by spxneo »

almost went for M2 128gb to run some local llamas

glad I held out. M4 is going to put downward pressure across all previous gen.

edit: nvm, AMD is coming out with twice the performance of M4 in two months or less. If the M2s become super cheap I will consider it but M4 came far too late. There's just way better alternatives now and very soon.

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