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Apple introduces M4 chip

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Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#891

Post by ragazzina »

Topfi wrote: post #704

Generally, I feel that telling a company how to handle a product line as successful as the iPads doesn't make much sense (what does my opinion matter vs their success), but I beg you, please make Xcode available on iPad OS or provide an optional and separate MacOS mode similar to Dex on Samsung tablets. Being totally honest, I don't like MacOS that much in comparison to other options, but we have to face the fact tha…

>a product line as successful as the iPads

Ipad revenue has been declining for 9 out of the last 10 quarters.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#892

Post by dns_snek »

benced wrote: post #692
tweetle_beetle wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if BYOE (bring your own electricity) also plays a part in their long term vision? Data centres are expensive in terms of hardware, staffing and energy. Externalising this cost to customers saves money, but also helps to paint a green(washing) narrative. It's more meaningful to more people to say they've cut their energy consumption by x than to say they have a better server obselesence strategy, for example.

Apple has committed that all of its products will be carbon-neutral - including emissions from charging during their lifetime - by 2030. The Apple Watch is already there. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/09/apple-unveils-its-fir...

From your link:

> "Apple defines high-quality credits as those from projects that are real, additional, measurable, and quantified, with systems in place to avoid double-counting, and that ensure permanence."

Apple then pledged to buy carbon credits from a company called Verra. In 2023, an investigation found that more than 90% of Verra's carbon credits are a sham. Notably, Apple made their pledge after the results of this investigation were known - so much for their greenwashing.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/18/revealed...

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#893

Post by davedx »

ActorNightly wrote: post #857
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 AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices. Apple's AI strategy is to put inference (and longer term even learning) on edge devices...only for Apple stuff. There is a big difference. ANE right now is next to useless for anything not Apple.

I think that’s going to change with WWDC

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#894

Post by sean_the_geek »

Seems like we are clearly in the _“post peak Apple”_ era now. This update is just for the sake of update; iPad lineup is (even more) confusing; iPhone cash-cow continues but at slower growth rate; new product launches - ahem! Vision Pro - have seen low to negligible adoption; marginal improvements to products so consumers are holding out longer on to their devices.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#895

Post by thefz »

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…

> The promise of privacy is one way in which they position themselves, but I would not bet the bank on that being true forever.

Everybody so quick to forget Apple was/is part of PRISM like any other company.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#896

Post by JodieBenitez »

_akhe wrote: post #724
JodieBenitez wrote: post #255

And here I am with my MB Air M1 with no plan to upgrade whatsoever because I don't need to... (yes, I understand this is about iPad, but I guess we'll see these M4 on the MB Air as well ?)

You'll want to upgrade to produce generative content - you just don't know it yet.

I don't do such things, not on my laptop anyways. I'll upgrade when the battery capacity is worn out, that's the only reason I can foresee.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#897

Post by kmacdough »

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…

It's not about price-performance value at all. Mac is still the most expensive performance. And Apple is only particularly popular in the US. Android phones dominate most other markets, particularly poor markets.

Apple is popular in the US because a) luxury brands hold sway b) they goad customers into bullying non-customers (blue/green chats) and c) they limit features and customizability in favor of simpler interfaces.

It's popular with developers because a) performance is valuable even at Apples steep cost b) it's Unix-based unlike Windows so shares more with the Linux systems most engineers are targeting.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#898

Post by srg0 »

paulpan wrote: post #251
dhx wrote: post #158

M2's Neural Engine had 15TOPS, M3's 18TOPS (+20%) vs. M4's 38TOPS (+111%). In transistor counts, M2 had 20BTr, M3 25BTr (+25%) and M4 has 28BTr (+12%). M2 used TSMC N5P (138MTr/mm2), M3 used TSMC N3 (197MTr/mm2, +43%) and M4 uses TSMC N3E (215MTr/mm2, +9%).[1][2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_nm_process#%225_nm%22_proces... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_nm_process#%223_nm%22_proces...

The fact that TSMC publishes their own metrics and target goals for each node makes it straightforward to compare the transistor density, power efficiency, etc. The most interesting aspect of the M4 is simply it's debuting on the iPad lineup, whereas historically it's always been on the iPhone (for A-series) and Macbook (for M-series). Makes sense given low expected yielded for the newest node for one of Apple's lowe…

With Logic Pro for iPad they now have applications for all their traditional Mac use cases on iPad. If anything, it feels like Apple is pushing for a switch from low-tier Macs to iPad Pro.

And they surely can sell more gadgets and accessories for an iPad than for a laptop.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#899

Post by whywhywhywhy »

vineyardmike wrote: post #869
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…

I run a few models (eg Llama3:8b) on my 2023 MacBook Air, and there is still a fair bit of lag and delay, compared to a hosted (and much larger) model like Gemini. A large source of the lag is the initial loading of the model into RAM. Which an iPhone will surely suffer from. Humane had lag and they used voice chat which is a bad UX paradigm. VUI is bad because it adds lag to the information within the medium. Listen…

Humane's lag feels down to just bad software design too, it almost feels like a two stage thing is happening like it's sending your voice or transcription up to the cloud, figuring out where it needs to go to get it done, telling the device to tell you its about to do that then finally doing it. E.g

User: "What is this thing?"

Pin: "I'll have a look what that is" (It feels this response has to come from a server)

Pin: "It's a " (The actual answer)

We're still a bit away from iPhone running anything viable locally, even small models today you can almost feel the chip creaking under the load they're incurring on it and the whole phone begins to choke.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#900

Post by trvz »

KeplerBoy wrote: post #186
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/

If these things will ever get MacOS support it will be useless with 8 GB of Ram. Such a waste of nice components.

Unlike seemingly everyone making this claim, I have used an M1 Mac mini with 8GB RAM. It's fine, and certainly not useless.
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