Good article from veteran Apple pundit Jason Snell: Apple needs to become a software company again | Macworld
I agree overall with his take. I think the M4 chip w/ on-device, private AI models will result in a huge upgrade supercycle for Macs.
3 Likes
Will see, first we would need Apple to build several enticing use cases for AI models ran locally in the Mac. Of course they will come up with something but that could be not enough, otherwise only devs will want to get the M4s.
2 Likes
Maybe I missed the point. When was Apple a software company? Also, the article focuses on the need for more robust hardware.
1 Like
Will it? What will the average office worker or home user be doing that will require an M4 processor? I don’t see AI “features in Apple Music, such as auto-generated playlists, and productivity apps like Pages and Keynote, where AI could assist with writing or creating slide decks” as being very important to businesses that run on Microsoft Office or Google Workspace.
Christina Warren wrote: “I upgraded to a 14-inch M3 Max MacBook Pro this year (from a 14-inch M1 Max model) and if I’m honest, it was an upgrade I absolutely didn’t need to make. The performance gains over two years are real, but Apple knocked it out of the park so much, so early, that most people can buy a machine for years and literally not think about it."
You may be correct but I don’t see that happening in the near future.
Apple Generative AI Features and Smarter Siri Could Launch Next Year
1 Like
I’ve been very happy with the AI tools I’ve started using.
But as someone that has been in this industry for quite a long time (i.e. an old guy), I always look at new tech keeping the famous Gartner curve in my view.
The key is where are we on the curve when Apple enters the “AI craze”?
2 Likes
I think Apple is entering the industry at exactly the right time. Many people want to use AI but don’t want to pay for an extra subscription, or have privacy concerns about how their text and images are being used or trained on. Apple’s on-device AI solutions will be exactly targeted to these sorts of users, many of whose first experience with AI will be with Apple AI.
I was watching a YouTube video today of how to install an LLM on on a PC and how important a GPU is to run it. But the guy then said if you are running a M series Mac, it will have no issues running it.
The local LLM was pretty easy to get up and running (I downloaded Ollama, but haven’t tried it myself yet), but the problem was adding new data to help it learn. It got complicated quickly and the video maker was talking about all the work VMware and Nvidia are doing in this area.
Which got me wondering, Apple has the hardware to do it, but do they have the ability/urge to try to compete against Nvidia here? Who, by judging by their latest keynote address, are going all in on AI.
1 Like
Nvidia and Apple aren’t competitors. Nvidia’s AI hardware and software runs in datacenters. Here’s a description of their H100 chip which sells for around $25,000 each. Their newest chip, the H200, expected to be released in a few months will sell for around $40,000.
Maybe not competitors, but if you want to do AI on your home computer, you need a GPU or a Mac. Granted this probably is not a huge market. On the corporate side, Nividia is already dominating.
1 Like