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Apple introduces M4 chip

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Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#731

Post by coffeebeqn »

klabb3 wrote: post #620
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…

> but it is about selling luxury hardware. Somewhat true but things are changing. While there are plenty of “luxury” Apple devices like Vision Pro or fully decked out MacBooks for web browsing we no longer live in a world where tech are just lifestyle gadgets. People spend hours a day on their phones, and often run their life and businesses through it. Even with the $1000+/2-3y price tag, it’s simply not that much gi…

Engineers use MacBook pros because it’s the best built laptop, the best screen, arguably the best OS and most importantly - they’re not the ones paying for them.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#733

Post by zipping1549 »

Aerbil313 wrote: post #641
paulpan wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do people not understand that Apple's 'price gouging' is about UX? A person who has the money to buy a 1TB iPad is worth more than average customer. A 16GB RAM doubtlessly results in a faster UX and that person is more likely to continue purchasing.

> Do people not understand that Apple's 'price gouging' is about UX? A person who has the money to buy a 1TB iPad is worth more than average customer. A 16GB RAM doubtlessly results in a faster UX and that person is more likely to continue purchasing.

And that decision somehow turns into making budget conscious people's UX shittier? How is that a reason not to make 16gb RAM, which is almost a bare minimum in 2024, available to everyone?

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#734

Post by bmitc »

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…

> [Apple's] privacy-first strategy

That is a marketing and advertising strategy.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#735

Post by bmitc »

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…

> IME Apple has always been the most honest when it makes performance claims.

In nearly every single release, their claims are well above actual performance.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#737

Post by seanmcdirmid »

cafed00d wrote: post #527
joelthelion wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 like to think back to 2011 and paraphrase what people were saying: "Is anyone seriously using gpu hardware to write nl translation software at the moment?" "No, we should be use cheap commodity abundantly available cpus and orchestrate then behind cloud magic to write our nl translation apps" or maybe "no we should build purpose built high performance computing hardware to write our nl translation apps" Or perhaps…

I remember having lunch with a speech recognition researcher who was using GPUs to train DNNs to do speech recognition in 2011. It really was thought of as niche back then. But the writing was on the wall I guess in the results they were getting.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#738

Post by cvwright »

VelesDude wrote: post #725
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…

I think it was Paul Thurrott on Windows Weekly podcast who said that all these companies don't really care about privacy. Apple takes billions of dollar a year to direct data towards Google via the search defaults. Clearly privacy has a price. And I suspect it will only get worse with time as they keep chasing the next quarter. Tim Cook unfortunately is so captured in that quarterly mindset of 'please the share holde…

It doesn’t matter to me if they “really care” about privacy or not. Megacorps don’t “really care” about anything except money.

What matters to me is that they continue to see privacy as something they can sell in order to make money.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#739

Post by davidee »

nblgbg wrote: post #409
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…

That doesn't seem to reflect in the battery life of these. They have the same exact battery life. Does it mean it's not entirely accurate? Since they don't indicate the battery capacity in their specs, it's hard to confirm this.

I haven't paid too much attention today, but what I did see with the iPad Pro was that they're using an OLED display (maybe even some kind of double layer OLED for increased brightness if I'm understanding the marketing jargon?).

I believe that OLED is much more power hungry than the previous display type (LED backlit LCD of some type?). I could be wrong, but in TV land that's the case...

Could explain, at least partly, why run time isn't greatly increased.

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