danvm

danox said:

jdw said:

All this TALK about AI, but so little to show for it. Yeah, I know about the coming announcement, but I'm honestly not holding my breath.

All said, I want SIRI to stop being an idiot.  Only moments ago, I invoked Siri on my 16" M1 Max MBP and asked it to open TouchID so I could add a new fingerprint, and foolish Siri responded back with "I can't do that."  What a complete idiot.  Siri is utterly worthless. If this AI talk makes Siri do even the most basic tasks FINALLY, then maybe it will be worth it.  But to this very day, all that tech Apple has poured into Siri hasn't resulted in something usable for me.

All the talk of AI by most of the present computer companies is just that talk Microsoft, Google, Meta, Samsung, Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, and Nvidia have been talking the loudest and most can't execute any useful AI product because they don't control both the OS and the SOC/CPU design in house. Guess who does?

And just because Apple has those elements in house doesn't mean a new AI solution will be a instantaneous one, and that is why the useless hype over AI will die down in time (end of the year) and many of those companies, Wall Street, and the general public will move on while the real research moves forward at a steady slow pace.  

I think that some of those companies that you mentioned are making useful things with AI.  Google and MS / OpenAI are integrating AI into their apps, with very good results, without the need to control OS and SOC design.  Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite looks promising, and Nvidia / AMD are doing very good in AI in datacenters.  I'm not so sure about Meta, Samsung and Intel, and neither Apple.  Apple had an advantage when they acquire SIri and later when the start to design their CPU / SoC, but missed a big opportunity to be an AI leader.  Looking forward to the WWDC to see what they announce.

elijahg said:

danvm said:

elijahg said:

loopless said:

It is NOT BS.  Unified memory is a huge advantage.

I have a 16GB 14" M1 MacBook Pro, and a  Dell 32GB Windows 11 Core I7 laptop. Both with SSD's.  I use them for software development.
The Windows 11 machine is bumping up against its memory limits (at which point the performance tanks)  earlier than I have problems with the MacBook when doing a similar set of tasks. For example, using QT Creator and Visual Code, then building large code bases and with lots of other apps open at the same time. 

And lets not talk about the various "blue screens" that still seem to plague Windows.
I looked at upgrading the Dell's memory  but it has CAMM memory that costs $1000 to upgrade - so don't be complaining about Apples prices!

Windows is hideously inefficient with RAM. Doesn't excuse Apple from still only supplying 8GB as standard though. If you need a VM for example,  that will eat all of the 8GB straight up. 

I know that Windows and macOS works differently, but I never seen a test where it shows that Windows is "hideously inefficient with RAM". At least in my customers working with heavy loads, they had no issues at all with memory management in Windows.  But maybe you had a different experience.  

Just anecdotal really - but running the same software for similar time doing a similar thing (Firefox for example), and Windows will have used much more RAM than macOS has. Similarly Windows is always doing something. Even when idle. My Intel MBP running Windows is always hot, same with my work laptop. But the same MBP running macOS at idle is cold. Massive amounts of energy wasted,

Windows has a service, SysMain, that analyze how you use the applications and use RAM as cache to speed up the system.  It's possible that the high RAM usage you see is for cache and not Windows being inefficient.  

In my experience with my Windows devices, there are problems if CPU usage is high while idle.  In normal circumstances, it should be close to 0% of CPU usage.  That's my experience with my Windows devices, and even with my customers. You should check if there are issues with an application or Windows missing an update. 

elijahg said:

loopless said:

It is NOT BS.  Unified memory is a huge advantage.

I have a 16GB 14" M1 MacBook Pro, and a  Dell 32GB Windows 11 Core I7 laptop. Both with SSD's.  I use them for software development.
The Windows 11 machine is bumping up against its memory limits (at which point the performance tanks)  earlier than I have problems with the MacBook when doing a similar set of tasks. For example, using QT Creator and Visual Code, then building large code bases and with lots of other apps open at the same time. 

And lets not talk about the various "blue screens" that still seem to plague Windows.
I looked at upgrading the Dell's memory  but it has CAMM memory that costs $1000 to upgrade - so don't be complaining about Apples prices!

Windows is hideously inefficient with RAM. Doesn't excuse Apple from still only supplying 8GB as standard though. If you need a VM for example,  that will eat all of the 8GB straight up. 

I know that Windows and macOS works differently, but I never seen a test where it shows that Windows is "hideously inefficient with RAM". At least in my customers working with heavy loads, they had no issues at all with memory management in Windows.  But maybe you had a different experience.  

danox said:

danvm said:

9secondkox2 said:

It’s hilarious. Apple has Ben at the forefront of ai for a long time already. 

Being a platform, it makes more sense for them to host generative ai apps. 

But nobody gets that. They actually think small companies like ChatGPT are competitors. 

Yet apple recognizes the future isn’t the status quo. So ChatGPT could make a hardware and platform run if it’s own. So apple heads them off. 

Mits all constant win for apple. Foolish to fault them for building something and only launching when it’s thoroughly ready. 

Apple is historically not first to most technologies after all, just the best. 

Considering that MS is backing up OpenAI and investing billions in them, I wouldn't say that OpenAI is a small competitor.  

Also, I would agree that Apple is not the first and in some cases it's the best.  The problem is that Apple don't have a good record in cloud services.  MS and Google are miles ahead of Apple in this market, even more when you consider the datacenters and infrastructure both companies have.  We'll see what happens in the next few months / years.

Microsoft payed 69 billion dollars for Blizzard, Apple bought for Next Computer for $400 million dollars (which came with Steve Jobs), Apple also spend 750 million dollars for PA Semi, Intrinsity, and Anobit, which led to the A, M, R1 series Apple Silicon SOC's, Apple is not playing catch-up to Microsoft or Google in AI Apple has been extremely efficient in finance and tech execution in comparison to their competition over the years. 

I don't understand how the acquisition of Activision / Blizzard or NeXT Computer has any relation with the discussion about AI.

Apples pathway is on the edge (vertical computer companies can do that) while Microsoft, Google, Meta are designing for the nebulous cloud. Apple has been designing NPUs into their SOCs, to use actual AI-driven features for sometime, in addition Apple has included LiDAR in the Apple Vision which has also been in their iPhones/iPads for the last four years and plays a big part in supplying data for so-called AI functions at the edge.

So Intel and AMD are going to offer CPU based AI/ML acceleration just like the M1, M2 and M3 Macs, iPads, iPhones and even Apple Watches all of which are currently in the hands of the public I hope Intel and AMD and Nvidia can keep the wattage down (doubtful) in their quest to keep up with Apple.

Apple working AI on the edge is not only because they are a vertical company, but also because they don't have an infrastructure to run AI / LMM to the level of Microsoft, Google or Amazon.  And remember that Microsoft is also working in AI on the edge.  

And you are right that Apple have CPU's with neural engines now, but it's possible that the 11 TOPS - 18 TOPS of current Apple M-processors is not enough for what we are seeing today with AI / LMM.  For example, MS will require 40 TOPS to run Copilot locally. That could be the reason there are rumors Apple M4 processors will have a greater focus in AI. If the rumors are true, at the end of this year Apple will have competition from Intel Meteor Lake, AMD Strix Point and Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite.  I don't think Intel and AMD will match Apple efficiency, but Qualcomm is a different story, considering they have an ARM CPU, their experience with mobile devices and there is a group of people that worked with Apple M processors. We'll have to wait and see how it goes.  Nvidia is a different story, considering they are focused on datacenters.  

9secondkox2 said:

It’s hilarious. Apple has Ben at the forefront of ai for a long time already. 

Being a platform, it makes more sense for them to host generative ai apps. 

But nobody gets that. They actually think small companies like ChatGPT are competitors. 

Yet apple recognizes the future isn’t the status quo. So ChatGPT could make a hardware and platform run if it’s own. So apple heads them off. 

Mits all constant win for apple. Foolish to fault them for building something and only launching when it’s thoroughly ready. 

Apple is historically not first to most technologies after all, just the best. 

Considering that MS is backing up OpenAI and investing billions in them, I wouldn't say that OpenAI is a small competitor.  

Also, I would agree that Apple is not the first and in some cases it's the best.  The problem is that Apple don't have a good record in cloud services.  MS and Google are miles ahead of Apple in this market, even more when you consider the datacenters and infrastructure both companies have.  We'll see what happens in the next few months / years.