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Apple introduces M4 chip

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Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#791

Post by EarthMephit »

threeseed wrote: post #700
jonplackett wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will be a winning strategy. Lag is a real killer for LLMs. I think they'll have another LLM on a server (maybe a deal for openai/gemini) that the one on the device can use like ChatGPT uses plugins. But on device Apple have a gigantic advantage. Rabbit and Humane are good ideas humbled by shitty hardware that runs out of battery, gets too hot, has to connect to the internet to do literally anything. Apple…

There really isn't enough emphasis on the downsides of server side platforms. So many of these are only deployed in US and so if you're say in country Australia not only do you have all your traffic going to the US but it will be via slow and intermittent cellular connections. It makes using services like LLMs unusably slow. I miss the 90s and having applications and data reside locally.

Even in Australia is the LLM lag to a server noticable?

Generally an LLM seems to take about 3s or more to respond, and the network delay to the US is a couple of hundred milliseconds.

The network delay seems minimal compared to the actual delay of the LLM.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#792

Post by SergeAx »

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…

Then putting only 256gb into their cheaper devices is really bad move. Even simple models like Whisper require hundreds of megabytes of storage.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#793

Post by trog »

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…

Half my organisation runs on 8GB Chromebooks. We were testing one of our app changes the other day and it performed better on the Chromebook than it did on my i7 machine with 32GB.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#794

Post by jascination »

bmitc wrote: post #734
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.

I'm a cross-platform app developer and can assure you iOS is much stronger in terms of what data you can/can't get from a user

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#795

Post by wmf »

gigatexal wrote: post #657

Anyone know if the ram multiples of the M4 are better than the M3? Example: could a base model M4 sport more than 24GB of ram?

The M3 can support 64 GB but Apple artificially limits it to 24 GB. There's no telling when they will decide to uncripple it.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#796

Post by wmf »

tsunamifury wrote: post #312

Its really saying something about how the tech sector has shifted due to the recent AI wave that Apple is announcing a chipset entirely apart from a product. This has never happened to my knowledge in this companies history? I could be wrong though, even the G3/G4s were launched as PowerMacs.

The M4 was announced with the iPad Pro that uses it.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#797

Post by beacon294 »

JohnBooty wrote: post #322
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…)

I wound up getting a 2019 iPad Pro for 50% off, so $500 or so. Thought I would use it as a work/play hybrid. Surprisingly (at least to me) I feel that I've more than gotten my money's worth out of it despite it being almost entirely strictly a consumption device. I tote it around the house so I can watch or listen to things while I'm doing other things. It's also nice to keep on the dining room table so I can read th…

I loved my 2017 ipad pro but I retired it because I noticed my productivity went way down and my consumption went way up.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#798

Post by kalleboo »

LtWorf wrote: post #614
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 is completely coherent with their privacy-first strategy Is this the same apple whose devices do not work at all unless you register an apple account?

That's not true though? I reset and set up devices for testing all the time, and you can skip logging into an Apple ID.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#799

Post by jojobas »

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…

Spending your life on a phone is still a lifestyle "choice".
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