blastdoor

JinTech said:

And it seems only 8GB memory across the board with no upgrade to 16GB. WTF Apple?

https://www.apple.com/imac-24/specs/

Clearly states "Up to 16 GB unified memory"

We'll see if the incoming Putin administration goes along with this. 

This the most interesting potential development in the PC CPU space since Ryzen (potentially more interesting, really). 

Qualcomm doesn't have to beat Apple to succeed, they just have to beat Intel. Major factors affecting this outcome include:

1. Do they get strong support from Microsoft? 
2. Does TSMC retain the process lead over Intel? 
3. Do developers port and optimize?

My guesses:

1. Sort of...
2. Yes.... barely
3. Some key developers do... most second tier don't

And so the result will be:
moderate success, enough to keep trying. 

Makes sense -- now that apple is going after the coffetable book market, things like wireless routers and displays need to be axed. 

tobian said:

DavidEsrati said:

Interesting. No worries about the fighting in Ukraine?
Or any other conflicts around the world?

Perhaps this is because of a different pace. At the end of the year, death toll in Ukraine was around 9.700 people after these years, while in Gaza it's over 30.000 since October. Civilians x soldiers ratio also differs. Hard to judge...

Maybe you have a different Ukraine in mind? Hundreds of thousands have died. 

foregoneconclusion said:

Rayz2016 said:

An in-house GPU eh?

This is where the bun fight starts. 

I would imagine that the MacBook would continue to use the SoC style GPU just like the iPad. It will be interesting to see what Apple does for higher end hardware like the MBP or iMac line. Will it still be integrated, or will they do a discrete version of the GPU?

That’s the big question in my mind, too. 

quakerotis said:

They are FOS. I feel no pain for them. They chose Arizona, which in 5 years will be burned to a crisp and uninhabitable. 

And their water demands will only further its demise.

My understanding is that Arizona is actually very appealing due to geological stability and lack of hurricanes/tornadoes. 

It is also my understanding that while a fab uses a lot of water, it's mostly recycled water. The analogy I've heard is that it's like a swimming pool -- it holds a lot of water, but then it just mostly recycles it. 

And in terms of water use furthering the demise of Arizona -- I've read the biggest culprit is ALFALFA farmers. Yes, alfalfa. Somehow, people are growing one of the most water intensive crops there is in the middle of a desert. 

Far better to turn those alfalfa fields into solar farms that power a Fab that's filled with water once, and then use the vast quantity of water saved from alfalfa farming to, you know, drink. 

igorsky said:

I don’t know why Apple is still in Russia but I bet there’s a lot of Russian citizens who don’t agree with Russian politics

You would lose that bet.  There is ample evidence online that Russians by and large gleefully support Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, just as they’ve supported Russia’s past military actions. 

I don't think there's enough reliable information about Russian public opinion to score whether that bet is won or lost. 

We know there exist people who gleefully support the war. 
We know that there are large numbers of people who fled Russia to avoid being sent to fight in the war. 
We can reasonably suspect that anybody staying behind who does NOT support the war would be wise to keep that lack of support to themselves. 

But we really have no idea what proportion of the Russian population genuinely supports the war -- and we may never know. 

The cheapest way to get lots of M2 cores is to buy several Mac minis. If your workloads can be distributed across machines, that’s clearly the way to go. 

Maybe they can use the technology and experience from this project to develop an AI that quickly identifies which projects to cancel. That could definitely help save money.