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Apple introduces M4 chip

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Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#571

Post by MyFirstSass »

littlestymaar wrote: post #566
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/

> 8gb of ram. WTF? Why so little? That's insane to me, that's the amount of RAM you get with a mid-range android phone.

We've reached a point where their chips has become so amazing they have to introduce "fake scarcity" and "fake limits" to sell their pro lines, while dividing their customers into haves and havenots, while actively stalling the entire field for the masses.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#572

Post by acdha »

sudosysgen wrote: post #448
smith7018 wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AI PC is a specific marketing term which Intel is using for their NPU-equipped products where they’re emphasizing low-power AI:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/what-i...

In that context it seems fair to make the comparison between a MacBook and the PC version which is closest on perf/watt rather than absolute performance on a space heater.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#573

Post by nox101 »

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…

Their primary business is transitioning to selling services and extracting fees. It's their primary growth

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#574

Post by wil421 »

baq wrote: post #217
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it just feels like a soft launch. You probably have people (like myself) trying to keep up with the latest MacBook Air who get fatigued having to get a new laptop every year (I just upgraded to the M3 not too long ago, from the M2, and before that... the M1... is there any reason to? Not really...), so now they are trying to entice people who don't have iPads yet / who are waiting for a reason to do an iPad upg…

I feel like I bought the M1 air yesterday. Turns out it was ~4 years ago. Never felt the need to upgrade.

The only reason I upgraded is my wife “stole” my M1 air. I bought a loaded M3 MBP and then they came out with a 15” Air with dual monitor capabilities. Kinda wish I had the air again. It’s not like I move it around much but the form factor is awesome.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#575

Post by kernal »

serial_dev wrote: post #549
andsoitis wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 are…

>subpar Android apps

Care to cite these subpar Android apps? The app store is filled to the brim with subpar and garbage apps.

>Google dropping support for an app about once a month

I mean if you're going to lie why not go bigger

>I'm okay with the lesser of two evils.

So the more evil company is the one that pulled out of China because they refused to hand over their users data to the Chinese government on a fiber optic silver plate?

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#576

Post by acdha »

slashdev wrote: post #72

I've got a Mac Pro paperweight because the motherboard went. It's going to the landfill. I can't even sell it for parts because I can't erase the SSD. If they didn't solder everything to the board you could actually repair it. When I replace my current Dell laptop, it will be with a repairable framework laptop.

> I can't even sell it for parts because I can't erase the SSD

The SSD is encrypted with a rate-limited key in the Secure Enclave - unless someone has your password they’re not getting your data.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#577

Post by animatethrow »

Only iPad Pro has M4? Once upon a time during the personal computer revolution in the 1980s, little more than a decade after man walked the moon, humans had sufficiently technologically developed that it was possible to compile and run programs on the computers we bought, whether the computer was Apple (I,II,III, Mac), PC, Commodore, Amiga, or whatever. But these old ways were lost to the mists of time. Is there any hope this ancient technology will be redeveloped for iPad Pro within the next 100 years? Specifically within Q4 of 2124, when Prime will finally offer deliveries to polar Mars colonies? I want to buy an iPad Pro M117 for my great-great-great-great-granddaughter but only if she can install a C++ 212X compiler on it.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#578

Post by sroussey »

anentropic wrote: post #85
sroussey wrote: post #15

“The next-generation cores feature improved branch prediction, with wider decode and execution engines for the performance cores, and a deeper execution engine for the efficiency cores. And both types of cores also feature enhanced, next-generation ML accelerators.”

I wish there was more detail about the Neural Engine updates

Agreed. I think they just doubled the number of cores and called it a day, but who knows.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#579

Post by jameshart »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #551
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…

This comment is odd. I wouldn't say it is misleading, but it is odd because it borders on such definition. > Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices This is pretty much everyone's strategy. Model distillation is huge because of this. This goes in line with federated learning. This goes in line with model pruning too. And parameter efficient tuning and fine tuning and pr…

Everyone’s strategy?

The biggest players in commercial AI models at the moment - OpenAI and Google - have made absolutely no noise about pushing inference to end user devices at all. Microsoft, Adobe, other players who are going big on embedding ML models into their products, are not pushing those models to the edge, they’re investing in cloud GPU.

Where are you picking up that this is everyone’s strategy?

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#580

Post by zamadatix »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #492
marinhero wrote: post #318

I get frustrated seeing this go into the iPad and knowing that we can't get a shell, and run our own binaries there. Not even as a VM like [UserLAnd]( https://userland.tech ). I could effectively travel with one device less in my backpack but instead I have to carry two M chips, two displays, batteries, and so on... It's great to see this tech moving forward but it's frustrating to not see it translate into a more si…

UTM can be built for iOS.

Hypervisor.framework is not exposed without a jailbreak which makes this quite limited in terms of usability and functionality.
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