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Apple introduces M4 chip

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Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#981
post #409

"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.

They made the battery on the 13" 5% smaller than the previous generation. They also write that they tested the device with auto-brightness disabled and brightness set at 50%. Not sure who the brightness slider works on the new iPads since the iPhones don't get max brightness unless auto-brightness is enabled. So 50% might be 1000/2=500 nits on the M4 iPad Pro and 600/2=300 nits on the M2 iPad Pro, or they might both be about 300 nits.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#982

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…

Their 2nd largest revenue source (at ... 20-25%, below only the iphone) is software services. iCloud, App store revenue, apple tv, and so on

Why would all services be grouped together in a single category when all hardware is not? iCloud and Apple TV are very different.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#983

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

Yep, the claim to prioritize privacy is a key selling point for them

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#984

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…

Nothing is true forever. Google wasn’t evil forever, Apple won’t value privacy forever. Until we figure out how to have guarantees of forever, the best we can realistically do is evaluate companies and their products by their behavior now weighted by their behavior in the past.

Privacy is challenging to achieve

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#985

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…

"Which would be at odds with sending data up to the cloud for processing"

I don't think there is enough information here for that to be a true claim - it is possible to send the input used for inference, to the cloud, while computing the result locally. It is also possible to store the input used for inference while offline, and send that later when the device is online.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#986
post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An NVIDIA RTX 4090 generates 73 TFLOPS. This iPad gives you nearly half that. The memory bandwidth of 120 GBps is roughly 1/10th of the NVIDIA hardware, but who’s counting!

This comment needs to be downvoted more. TFLOPS is not TOPS, this comparison is meaningless, the 4090 is about 40x TOPS of the M4.

Many thanks for the encouraging comments.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#987

Key values in the press release: - Up to 1.5x the CPU speed of iPad Pro's previous M2 chip - Octane gets up to 4x the speed compared to M2 - At comparable performance, M4 consumes half the power of M2 - High-performance AI engine, that claims 60x the speed of Apple's first engine (A11 Bionic)

> - Up to 1.5x the CPU speed of iPad Pro's previous M2 chip What I want to know is whether that ratio holds for single-core performance measurements.

Here’s the benchmark:

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/cpus/apple-m4-sco...

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#988

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/

The iPod classic had 160 GB of storage fifteen years ago. No device should be measuring storage in the gigabytes in 2024. Let alone starting at $1000 offering only 256GB. What ridiculousness.

When you can buy a 256 GiB SD card for $40 or an actual 256 GiB SATA SSD for $20.

iPad Pros should come with 1-16 TiB of SSD, and 16-128 GiB of RAM.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#989

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPod classic had 160 GB of storage fifteen years ago. No device should be measuring storage in the gigabytes in 2024. Let alone starting at $1000 offering only 256GB. What ridiculousness.

I just checked, and my iPhone is using 152 GB of storage. I have years of photos and videos on there. Apparently the 256 GB model was the right choice for me?

You haven't seen the size of my music, TV, or movie collection then. We have the technology to put it all on my phone and it should be cheaper, but it's not because of an absurd, money-and-design-only consumerist monoculture from the head bean counter who drifted far afield of the cool practicality and leadership of SJ.

Re: Apple introduces M4 chip

#990

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.

Remove the SSD card/chips and recycle the rest as e-waste. It's not hard to not throw toxic shit into landfill if you try the least.
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