avon b7

9secondkox2 said:

Hope not. Apple should go all-in with on-device. 

Even if it takes longer, that’s fine. 

About as long as it takes to run a photoshop action. 

No problem. 

Solutions need to be 'trained' and then deployed as models.

It is possible that these servers are for some kind of training but either way, not everything can (or needs to) be done locally. 

danox said:

blastdoor said:

How Apple Silicon keeps its competitive edge

I just re-read this section and was surprised by a critical omission — TSMC. 

Apple has kept its edge partly by being first in line to every new process from TSMC. When the M1 came out it was on TSMC 5nm while Intel was stuck on something more akin to TSMC 10nm (Intel called it 14nm+++). That’s a hugely important process difference. 

Now Apple is on TSMC 3nm while Intel is using a process that is finally competitive with the 5nm process of the M1. So still a big lead for Apple an TSMC. 

But later this year — allegedly— Intel will leap ahead to their 20A process (maybe similar to TSMC 2nm). If Intel pulls this off it could put them back on top in the PC CPU space. So there could be some clouds on the horizon for the M series. 

Intel doesn't have a in house OS no can do.....They have been disrupted by Apple.

Is that the same Intel that saved Apple's bacon when PPC hit the skids? 

tht said:

This has been one of those obvious moves for long while now.

Upcoming Nvidia server hardware is now running at up to 1000 W, requires liquid cooling and cost a whole lot of money. If Apple can produce equivalent performance at 250 to 500 W and having equivalent LLM performance at lower memory footprints, it may actually make LLM chatbots, searches, and services profitable. And they may get a two-for if that hardware can be run in a Mac Pro.

I have not seen whether MS Co-pilot subscriptions make any profits yet. The non-MS LLM services? I think they are all operating at loss. Still early for Google to see if their LLM services will be profitable.

Apple? All part of their ecosystem train and can be amortized across multiple products, especially if their LLM services sell hardware.

Yes. If true it's been a long time coming but a welcome addition. 

The only doubt I have is that processors themselves aren't enough. They would need a full stack solution and a lot of interconnect and software frameworks to make it all work.

A good strategic move if they do go down that route. 

blastdoor said:

Since WeChat is the “ecosystem” in China, it doesn’t matter as much which phone you buy. 

So I’m wondering if owning an iPhone in China has always been more about fashion and politics than anything else. Maybe buying from American companies has become less popular in China. 

Sucks for apple shareholders, but apple customers in the rest of the world won’t be hurt by this — if anything, it will make Apple appreciate the rest of us even more.

That may be partly true for software and, in a way, on that side at least, it does act as a kind of abstraction layer.

But then you have the phone itself and the buzz around it. Apple plays one card and then sits back for a year and waits to play the next one. 

Competitors bring new features to market every few months and the resulting marketing heft does the rest. 

Huawei has just released the Pura 70 series which sold out in seconds and will probably stay that way for months. The same thing happened last August with the Mate 60 series and that is the release that supposedly put the skids on Apple in China. 

For years now, cameras have been the main marketing focus. Apple has not really been among the top players in those years in terms of camera innovation. 

Perhaps we are seeing a shift to AI recently but cameras will still play a major role. 

Then there is the hardware ecosystem, for which no one is likely to top Xiaomi or Huawei on home turf. That of course includes cars, where Huawei is putting HarmonyOS on a large variety of models. Xiaomi is following a similar path to Huawei with HyperOS (although it is still based on Android) and also has a car coming to market which is seeing high demand. 

The hardware side needs to interoperate and obviously wireless is how that is done. Again, Apple is lagging against things like NearLink and 5G based technologies.

Even at launch the latest iPhones weren't really a compelling proposition as Apple insists on drip feeding features to users and the 'performance' side of things is demonstrably not a major issue when virtually no one has seen their phones lacking in that area for literally years. 

It all kind of adds up to a mini perfect storm but in the specific case of China, Apple warned things wouldn't be great at the last earnings call so news like this (if it plays out in the end) aren't really a surprise. 

ssfe11 said:

A social media company competing with Apple on hardware/software is just silly.

In this case, isn't it the other way around? 

Meta is the established and dominant player and Apple is the one stepping in.