Apple’s “Let Loose” iPad event - M4 SoC already, dual-stack OLEDs, haptic (spatial?) Pencil, laptop-style aluminum keyboard

[DrMacintosh]

On 5/6/2024 at 9:26 AM, LAwLz said:

M4 - 2024-05-07 ?? (6 months later)

Remember that this is just the base M4. Apple hasn't even made a successor to M2 Ultra yet. So it's not like the lineup makes sense. 

[Commodus]

30 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Remember that this is just the base M4. Apple hasn't even made a successor to M2 Ultra yet. So it's not like the lineup makes sense. 

Apple does need to clean things up. It sounds like that's what we'll get over the next year, but it does mean that Apple might go into 2025 with high-end desktops using M2, the MacBook Air using M3, and everything else using an M4 variant.

[rikitikitavi]

5 hours ago, Obioban said:

Can't wait for the M5 next week! 

 

Actually, in all seriousness, I'm going to upgrade my M1 laptop to an M5 laptop, entirely so I can own an M3 (iMac) and an M5 (MBP)... since those happen to be the two cars I daily drive. 

 

 

I wonder if you were planning for the AS M5 release to show off, but couldn't wait any longer lol

[rickymohk]

Do you now need a $19 cloth to clean the iPad too?

[Obioban]

7 hours ago, rikitikitavi said:

I wonder if you were planning for the AS M5 release to show off, but couldn't wait any longer lol

…

 

I’m sorry if mentioning my 20 and 23 year old cars, with 170,000 and 220,000 miles respectively, was too braggadocios?

[williamcll]

Maybe it's time to put MacOS on the iPad

[StDragon]

12 minutes ago, williamcll said:

Maybe it's time to put MacOS on the iPad

So, basically a MacBook Air that does screen touch with the keyboard ripped off it?

Maybe they can sell the now ripped off keyboard as an accessory to it later. Seems like a sound business strategy. 

iPad Book Air doesn't sound right though.

[leadeater]

51 minutes ago, StDragon said:

iPad Book Air doesn't sound right though.

Apple MacPad Air

Apple LapPad Air

Apple PadTop Air

Apple MacSheet Air

Apple MacPlank Air

[williamcll]

1 hour ago, StDragon said:

So, basically a MacBook Air that does screen touch with the keyboard ripped off it?

Maybe they can sell the now ripped off keyboard as an accessory to it later. Seems like a sound business strategy. 

iPad Book Air doesn't sound right though.

No because Macbooks will never have a touchscreen if they stick to what Steve jobs said.

[Dracarris]

If I got it right, no perf comparisons M3 vs M4 shown, only M2 vs M4? So the improvements over M3 are rather smol, I am assuming.

[leadeater]

22 minutes ago, Dracarris said:

If I got it right, no perf comparisons M3 vs M4 shown, only M2 vs M4? So the improvements over M3 are rather smol, I am assuming.

Probably only a minor performance increase per core, it is the same node just slightly modified. However M4 has 2 extra efficiency cores and they aren't "slow" so performance will have increased by a decent amount overall. There is a huge, ~60%, increase in the NPU performance.

 

On the GPU side all the features listed are also on the M3 GPU so I don't know if any improvements there at all, ones worth really mentioning anyway.

 

Can't expect too much when using the same overall fab node.

[LAwLz]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Probably only a minor performance increase per core, it is the same node just slightly modified. However M4 has 2 extra efficiency cores and they aren't "slow" so performance will have increased by a decent amount overall. There is a huge, ~60%, increase in the NPU performance.

 

On the GPU side all the features listed are also on the M3 GPU so I don't know if any improvements there at all, ones worth really mentioning anyway.

 

Can't expect too much when using the same overall fab node.

It's a shame, although probably deliberate, that Apple didn't compare the M3 to the M2 during that announcement. If they had done that we would have been able to figure out how big of an improvement it would have been going from the M3 to the M4.

 

I am surprised that they announced the M4 this early.

 

 

N3 to N3E doesn't seem like a big improvement though. Maybe like 5% better power and performance?

I think, as you said, that if there is a performance improvement then it will probably be from the extra efficiency cores, or perhaps the faster RAM (20% increase in bandwidth). They also said they improved some other things like the branch predictor was improved and that the CPU architecture is now wider, which might increase performance a bit. But consider they didn't compare it to the M3 I suspect that it will be somewhat minor architectural improvements.

[leadeater]

17 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

N3 to N3E doesn't seem like a big improvement though. Maybe like 5% better power and performance?

They also decreased the SRAM density, probably to increase yields.

[LAwLz]

I just noticed that the M4 in the 256GB and 512GB version of the iPad Pro has 3 performance cores (+6 efficiency), while the M4 in the 1TB and 2TB model has 4 performance cores (+6 efficiency).

 

Has Apple done this before? Disabled one perform core. 

They also bumped the RAM from 8GB to 16GB om the 1TB+ models.

The GPU is the same though. It seems like it's just one performance core that is disabled.

[Obioban]

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

Probably only a minor performance increase per core, it is the same node just slightly modified. However M4 has 2 extra efficiency cores and they aren't "slow" so performance will have increased by a decent amount overall. There is a huge, ~60%, increase in the NPU performance.

 

On the GPU side all the features listed are also on the M3 GPU so I don't know if any improvements there at all, ones worth really mentioning anyway.

 

Can't expect too much when using the same overall fab node.

60% NPU gains vs M3? Or M2?

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, Obioban said:

60% NPU gains vs M3? Or M2?

vs M3, it's a big upgrade

[Obioban]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

vs M3, it's a big upgrade

Looking forward to seeing more use of the all the NPUs. Hopefully WWDC will give more indication of that occurring.

 

Sounds like vs M3 it's shaking out to..

5-10% gains in single thread

10-25% gains in multi thread

Little to no gains on GPU

60% gains on NPU

 

Actually far more of an upgrade than I expected.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, Obioban said:

5-10% gains in single thread

Anything above 5% is very unlikely. TSMC isn't claiming much of a node performance increase and both logic and overall node density is less than N3. We're more likely in margin of error territory even with some minor uarch tweaks. If it was anything worth talking about, which 10% is, then Apple would have pointed it out by comparing with M3 and done so mixing in power and performance for something like 15%-20% gain at same power or something along those lines. Since M3 was avoided I'd be expecting 3%-4%, they haven't really done any more more than Intel has in the 4% cycle decade drought, spit shine on basically same node.

 

Yields aside N3 in some ways is better than N3E

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

vs M3, it's a big upgrade

I wonder what they are going to use all that power for.

When Qualcomm announced their NPU upgrade they demoed running LLM models like Llama and generating images with Stable Diffusion locally. 

 

Maybe I missed it but the only thing I saw Apple demo was "hold to cut out", which is something they can already do.

[leadeater]

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I wonder what they are going to use all that power for.

When Qualcomm announced their NPU upgrade they demoed running LLM models like Llama and generating images with Stable Diffusion locally. 

 

Maybe I missed it but the only thing I saw Apple demo was "hold to cut out", which is something they can already do.

No idea but if I had to guess something related to Siri, maybe in the types of realms of what Microsoft did with Co-Pilot but on device and more scope limited. I can see removing some of the challenges of a touch device being addressed by getting the device to do the actual work/application input and manipulation for you.

 

There's a lot more possibility out there than "Chat GPT" and "Image Generation", probably a lot of things none of have thought of because it hasn't been feasible.

[OhYou_]

I have been telling employees to wait where possible for literally 3 months because they keep asking or need a new ipad and the options are what, a ipad 10.2 from 2021, a air 5 from 2022, or a still just as old pro that wont get approved because cost mone.
and all this waiting is done for lmao a M2 chip, a chip from 2022.
 

 

On 5/6/2024 at 1:20 AM, emosun said:

I hope they introduce a reason for the vision pro to exist

I dont think Apple will be introducing VR pornography any time soon

[Obioban]

32 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I wonder what they are going to use all that power for.

When Qualcomm announced their NPU upgrade they demoed running LLM models like Llama and generating images with Stable Diffusion locally. 

 

Maybe I missed it but the only thing I saw Apple demo was "hold to cut out", which is something they can already do.

Running stable diffusion locally is already viable on the M1 NPU-- so that would really just be a (seemingly significant) speed bump.

 

Which, to my limited understanding of NPUs, is generally how all results will be? Not new functionality, but the same functionality faster?

 

Either way, looking forward to WWDC to see Apple start to put all these NPUs to work more significantly. They've been shipping them in literally every Apple silicon powered computer, with not a ton of stuff happening on them thus far. Hopefully it's something more interesting that Stable Diffusion (not to say that's not interesting, just that it can already be done today).

[AnonymousGuy]

I normally don't bitch about pricing but god DAMN the pricing is wild if you want the nanoetched matte screen or whatever and have to buy a 1TB iPad Pro.

 

[rikitikitavi]

15 hours ago, Obioban said:

…

 

I’m sorry if mentioning my 20 and 23 year old cars, with 170,000 and 220,000 miles respectively, was too braggadocios?

True… very modest… unless both are manual and well kept - then it is a brag lmao

[rikitikitavi]

14 hours ago, williamcll said:

Maybe it's time to put MacOS on the iPad

iPadOS should accommodate the 'PRO' apps and give more freedom to devs, like macOS, but it should not just copycat it.

Waiting for the improvements in desktop mode UI (w/ a monitor attached) and multiuser support.

 

14 hours ago, StDragon said:

iPad Book Air doesn't sound right though.

Let me help you... iPad Air Book lol