verne arase

twolf2919 said:

Going forward, Apple may have some growth issues.  While iPhone sales might still increase a few percentage points and similarly now Apple Watch sales might still incremental sales increases, I think Mac sales will be flat or down in the near future.  Apple has benefited from its move away from Intel and the home-bound demand during covid, but those waves are gone.  Increasingly, folks won't move from PC to Mac simply because they can't or won't because some critical or favorite software isn't available on the new Mac.  One example I can think of is Turbotax for Business.  Intuit never made a macOS version - but with x86-based Macs you could at least run the software in Parallels Desktop's virtual machine offering or dual-boot your Mac.  Now that is gone.  I got a new Mx MBP, but I am keeping my old x86-basd MBP around - just for that reason.  Others simply won't/can't do that.

Actually, you can.

If you run ARM Windows 11 in a Parallels virtual machine, it has the ability to run x86-64 code in emulation similar to the way the Mac runs x86-64 Mac code in emulation in Rosetta.

Are these disgruntled employees?

Doesn't seem to me to be a grudge, but simply Apple trying to compete.

It doesn't at all look like harboring a grudge, though I would certainly understand if there was some resentment.

I'm sure there were a pallet's worth of dead iPhones littering the floor of Google labs while Google worked on the second coming of Android.

Google didn't give Apple full access to the Google Maps API so Apple users could do routing - because Google realized that having full access to the complete API was a competitive advantage for Android.

Because of this, Apple eventually created their own mapping initiative costing zillions of dollars spanning all these many years with surveyors mapping the entire planet.

Recently, I noticed that the Apple Maps driving instructions while taking my daughter to work at a Panera Bread included routing through the parking lot of the mall which contains the Panera. I don't remember this happening before - this would indicate to me that Apple is silently improving the smarts of Apple Maps to this day.

I find Google caterwauling about fixing Android messaging using an incomplete semi-standard with end-to-end encryption which exists only on Google servers quite humorous; while end-to-end encryption works for two clients, it doesn't even support group messaging even on Google's servers.

That Apple should put time and money into supporting Google's efforts - especially considering how Google drops initiatives it grows bored with - is ludicrous. How many messaging apps has Google made, only to drop each one?

The iMessage implementation is complete and is a competitive advantage for Apple.

I'm sure Google is familiar with the concept.

blitz1 said:

Point taken. Nice to see that the EC stays sharp as a knife against companies taking competition laws lightly.

if Apple won’t make Apple Intelligence aka OpenAI with an Apple layer, then users can still do without the layer

Not sure what you're saying here.

Apple Intelligence runs using an Apple Small Language Model on device. I that fails, the request is forwarded to Apple's Private Cloud Compute running on Apple Silicon servers running an Apple Large Language Model in Apple's data center which feature stronger SoCs and more memory on custom operating systems which have been stripped of even the ability to write data to disk (so there's no logging). Once the request has been satisfied it is scrubbed from the server.

If PCC fails and believes that a 3rd party LMM can solve the problem - currently only OpenAI's ChatGPT - and if the user has enabled ChatGPT, the user is prompted to see if he/she wants the request passed to the 3rd party AI provider. If so, the 3rd party provider is sent the minimal amount of data along with the request on an encrypted anonymized link and the result is returned to user. OpenAI has agreed not to log the request.

Apple Intelligence is not AKA OpenAI - OpenAI is just a 3rd party AI provider, the same way Google search is a 3rd party search provider.

This is the one I've been waiting for to replace my 2020 iMac 5K which has been glitching lately playing YouTube videos and consuming 100% CPU.

Getting this with a Studio Display, 64 GB RAM, a fully loaded M4 Max, and 4 TB SSD so this is basically a slide-in replacement for my iMac.

The Ultras have way more horsepower and multiprocessing than I need, and the faster M4 performance cores will make this the snappiest Mac yet for normal workloads.

With 4 Thunderbolt 5 ports on the rear, the Studio Display will leave three each with a Thunderbolt controller behind it (unlike the 2020 iMac which shared a single controller between the two ports). A new keyboard will add TouchID support to speed security interruptions.

This should be over 3x faster than my core-i9 iMac (which is still my daily driver due to its superior screen real estate), with six times faster graphics with hardware ray tracing - not to mention support for Apple Intelligence. The 2020 iMac will replace the old 2017 iMac 5K as the family computer (which no longer has current macOS support).

Splitting up the processor and display will make for cheaper and smoother upgrades in the future too - though given the power of this new hardware it's hard to see needing upgrades much in the future.

I dumped Apple stock at the beginning of November, and repurchased recently.

I like Apple, but don't feel compelled to ride the stock down when the company suffers from their own stupidity (doggedly insisting on manufacturing in China) - increased my share count by about 17.45% as a consequence.

ralphabet said:

So where is the source of it's AI images? It has to glean images from somewhere to train it's AI tool. Does anyone know?

Betcha they paid publishers, image repositories, and maybe some social media platforms with compliant terms of service to train their models.

Last thing a company like Apple wants is someone claiming their models were trained on stolen IP.

rob53 said:

I agree but there's no M4 Pro iMac of any size and I doubt Apple will make one. Apple seems to be pushing laptops and iPads, not desktops, so the only way we're going to get a 27" or more 5K iMac is if we buy a Mac mini M4 Pro or the Mac Studio combining it with as good of a display as we can find. 

We're looking at $4600 for a fully blown Mac mini M4 Pro. 14/20/16, 64GB/8TB, +$100 for 10G ethernet if desired.

Same specs on the Mac Studio would cost $5099, 14/40/16, 64GB/8TB. Had to go with better SoC to get 64GB memory.
--So these configurations cost about the same but the Studio has a lot more headroom for better specs. Are the M4 Pro mini specs enough for most of you/us? They totally destroy anything Apple made with the Intel chip, including my fully blown 2019 iMac.

The 2020 iMac 5K with core-i9 (10c, 20t) and AMD Radeon 5700/XT with 16 GB VRAM and 10g ethernet - my currently daily driver - was the most powerful intel machine Apple made; heck, I bought it after the M1 was announced to tide me over while Apple smoothed over the Apple Silicon transition.

The Mac Studio with the unbinned M4 Max has over three times the CPU power and over six times the graphics power (and supports ray tracing and Apple Intelligence); combine that with a Studio Display and you have a capable replacement for the 2020 iMac 5K with some granularity - you can replace the Mac Studio without having to rebuy the display - though I can't really see my workload overpowering the M4 Max, except maybe for stuff like Topaz Video AI which will probably always eat as much resources as available.

discountopinion said:

M3Ultra instead of M4Ultra is likely due to Apple being hard at work during 2024 to make that happen and would have had to start over if skipping directly to M4Ultra.

Hopefully any lessons learned with M3Ultra can help accelerate M4Ultra.

They obviously had to reengineer the Thunderbolt controller for Thunderbolt 5 on the M3 Max, but the interconnect may be something that is much harder to insert into the SoC architecture - otherwise they would've probably made a M4 Ultra.

jesusfreak said:

Nothing but pessimistic Trump bashing and liberal spin on our "education funding".

We spend PLENTY on education in America, but we spend it POORLY.  We do not need MORE MONEY for education, we need to toss out all the bull dung and bologna and focus on SKILLS and BASICS instead of useless woke indoctrination.   Too many high paid Administrators and fancy buildings, not enough going to teachers, allowing teachers to teach and maintaining DISCIPLINE and demanding SUCCESS out our public schools.  

But how educated to you have to be to assemble an iPhone?   I think the Robots will be taking over most of this in the not too distant future.  Especially once we make it unattractive for communist dictatorships to force their multitudes into modern slave labor.

A lot of bashing Trump, but at least he is DOING something.   The last 6+ Presidents did nothing, or made things worse.   But, let's bash the guy trying to move the needle.

Unfortunately a lot of what Trump is doing is chasing industry out of America.

If you are at all involved in the global supply chain, these tariffs are increased te cost of your goods - why do you think so many of our manufacturers are now moving to Canada? I'm not sure we're going to have any vehicle manufacturers or heavy inducstry left in this country when Trump is done with his tariffs.

If that's the case, y'all are all going to have to go to working planting and picking crops because all the farm worker's will have been deported and the good jobs have fled the country to avoid the tariffs.

Something that the stupid MAGAites still haven't figured out is that tariffs are taxes paid by American citizens to the government, increasing the price of consumer goods. These are not taxes paid by foreigners - they're paid by you and me, and they're generally going towards reducing the taxes of the top 0.1% of American earners.