elijahg

auxio said:

foregoneconclusion said:

Unified memory IS more efficient than DDR. There’s no 1x1 comparison between the two. 

DDR (double data rate) is just the data throughput of RAM, which doesn't say anything about how much memory is required by applications.

However, the point about unified memory being more efficient (apps require less overall RAM) is correct. Without it apps which need to, for example, display an image on the screen need to store a copy of that image in both CPU memory (RAM) and GPU memory (VRAM). With unified memory they only need one copy because both the CPU and GPU can access the same memory. The same holds true for machine learning and the NPU (neural processing unit).

All that said, people without critical thinking skills (i.e. the majority of the population) simply follow the "bigger is better" logic. And so if Apple hopes to sell to such people, they'll have to bump the specs, even if those people will never need that extra memory.

The second half is not true. The same image data does not need to be in RAM and VRAM. Even if that was the case, the shared memory space means you are just using memory that could be used for applications for VRAM instead so there is no storage benefit with shared RAM. It does effectively enable you to feed data into the VRAM though without going through main RAM first, because the main RAM just "converts" to VRAM when you tell the GPU to access the memory address of that image data. However, a dedicated GPU has dedicated VRAM so whilst data goes through main RAM first (though there are now ways to have the GPU fetch directly from the SSD, bypassing CPU and main RAM), that main RAM is still available for applications, whereas with shared it is not.

But! MacOS does memory compression across the board, which for some data will effectively hugely increase the available RAM. But other data is not compressible, so it's not cut and dry. I don't know if Windows does or not.

In this case, bigger is most definitely better, aside from a tiny impact on battery life. My MBP regularly uses way over 8GB RAM with just Safari open. 

I said years ago this would happen if Apple continued as they were, and many of the less… pragmatic here laughed at that said nope never. Well here we are. Apple forced other’s hand. Will be interesting to see how it turns out for users, and if the supposed invasion of malware will happen as those with a rather less balanced view predicted. I doubt it somehow. 

Auto-summary is nothing new and it does not use AI. It has been around since OS X.4ish afaik. In fact Malcom you did an article on it in 2018: https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/05/07/how-to-shorten-long-text-documents-in-macos-with-the-summarize-service

mark fearing said:

elijahg said:

hmurchison said:

Reminds of the conundrum the Pre - Jobsian Apple found themselves in with Clones. 

They thought the clone vendors would attempt to expand into new markets but instead they 
simply sought to cannibalize the company with inferior offerings. 

What incentive does Apple have to allow a significant amount of vendors to leverage their distribution 
platform at minimal cost and reap the financial benefits outside of Apple's sphere? 

If they were inferior offerings how was it they were able to cannibalise Apple's sales?

A lot of the clones were excellent. That was the problem, they were faster, more feature-rich and cheaper than Apple's Macs. 

This is different. Apple's incentive to allow vendors to sell on the App Store is increased sales of iPhones. Besides, Apple distributes Facebook, X and a multitude of apps completely free, so why try and force this small developer to pay especially when they've already got another app through with the "reader" clause? And considering the amount of trash on the App Store - and as the dev points out, Google has heaps of apps that could all be mangled into one. Why did Apple allow Messenger to be separated from Facebook?

The question is - should it be illegal for Apple to do something someone thinks is dumb? And what about access to x-box and PlayStation stores? Or reselling digital downloads? I think this is a big ‘so what’. Walmart still won’t sell my homemade bird feeders and that’s the way I reach Walmart buyers. Illegal?

The issue comparing with Walmart are multifaceted; Walmart isn't part of what is effectively a duopoly, Walmart doesn't have unlimited shelf space, third party products aren't designed to work only for customers of Walmart, and there is no "access charge" to shop at Walmart.

To enter a market where a duopoly exists is hard. This is especially true, to use your Walmart analogy, when you would have to attract customers to your store initially without having any third party products at all, only a small range of products produced by you. You would then somehow need to persuade companies to spend a lot of R&D designing products for your store, products that could only be sold in your store. Companies can't just pick up an iOS app and stick it onto the Google Play store. Once they're invested in iOS, there is no way out without rewriting their app pretty much from scratch.

The argument from the customer side is similar: the customer has effectively paid several thousands to your store firstly for access, and then on items within your store that they will effectively no longer be able to use if they switch to a different store. Once the customer has bought an iPhone, if they find an app they want is only on Android because Apple rejected it, they can't just "buy an Android" like it's a couple of dollars, as people often suggest as a solution. This tie-in is a big part of the issue. You can just go to a different store and ask them to sell your bird feeder. The same customers can just buy that bird feeder at the alternative store, and it will work just the same. You can't just pick up your app and sell the same binary on the Play store. iOS users can't just go and download your app from the Play store.

I agree though that the Xbox and Playstation should allow sideloading. Though I don't imagine it would be that common because - as far as I know - neither MS or Sony have quite such restrictive rules as Apple. But that doesn't mean devs shouldn't have a way around the 30% tax on those platforms.

I don't have a problem with reselling digital downloads, but traditionally the issue there is guaranteeing the original purchaser does not still have access to the sold download. That is quite hard, especially if sideloading is allowed.

eriamjh said:

I'm going to go out on a limb to say that the 2024 MacOS release will be the last one that supports Intel machines unless Sonoma is already it.  There's is no way that Apple will support a 2020 iMac in 2025, five years later.   

What about the Intel Mac Pro which was still sold a few months ago? Only a year of software support for someone's new machine? I don't think so. Sonoma supports the iMac Pro from 2017, that is 6 years. So not sure why there's "no way" Apple will support something for 5 years. They only just dropped the iPhone X from 2017 with iOS 17.