Apple’s iPad announcements are usually quick, low-key affairs: update the screen, put the latest MacBook chip in the iPad Pro, throw in some skits for Razzle Diesel, and call it a day. But today’s iPad event surprised everyone by revealing the next Apple silicon chip: the M4.
In an unprecedented move, the iPad Pro is actually getting ahead of the MacBook by getting the first crack at Apple’s latest in-house chip. While it’s not a replacement for pro-level silicon like the M3 Ultra, the M4 coming to the iPad Pro first means it’s possible that your next iPad will be more powerful than your current iPad. Current MacBook Air (Or A 14-inch MacBook Pro for that matter).
All of this has big implications for Apple’s place in the ongoing big tech AI battle, where it has historically lagged behind.
What’s different about Apple’s M4 chip?
The Apple M4 chip is, predictably, all about AI. While M-series chips have always had a neural engine (or NPU) built-in, the M4’s neural engine is getting a huge performance boost. It’s still only 16 cores, but Apple claims it can now run “38 trillion operations per second,” a sixty-fold speed improvement over the company’s first neural engine. In comparison, the M3’s neural engine tops out at 18 trillion operations per second.
“The neural engine in the M4 is more powerful than any neural processing unit in any AI PC today,” said Tim Millett, VP of Apple’s Platform Architecture Division.
That’s a big claim for a chip debuting in a tablet, and one that may not hold true for long (more on that later). But the M4 is also improving in more traditional ways: In addition to its four performance cores, the M4 uses six performance cores, two more than the M3. Its 10-core GPU is mostly the same as the M3 on paper, though Apple claims four times faster performance than the M2. Claims it made with M3..
Apple also plans to continue to lead the industry in power efficiency. “The M4 can deliver the same performance as the M2 using only half the power,” claimed Millet.
Rounding out these improvements is a new Display Engine, largely built to support the iPad Pro’s OLED screen. This engine will power the device’s 10Hz-120Hz dynamic refresh rate screen, as well as help with brightness and color compensation. Brightness is a common pain point for OLED, and it’s something the iPad Pro is trying to fix with its new “Tandem OLED” screen, which is basically two OLED displays stacked on top of each other. she does. The display engine will also help keep these screens in sync.
What does the M4 mean for Apple AI?
All eyes are on Apple’s next. WWDC this June, where the company is expected to finally announce its AI rival to the likes of ChatGPT and Google Gemini. The M4 chip debuting in the tablet first only fueled those rumors.
As with the release of standalone AI tools (and the resulting frustration) Human AI Pin and Rabbit R1, it’s clear that the market is hurting for AI implementations that move beyond innovation and actually integrate into your mobile operating system. Such an AI assistant can easily set appointments, change phone settings, send texts and more. Google is expected to be the first to bat with such AI. Google I/O Next week, but next month could easily see Apple’s mobile operating system next. It’s unclear what the Cupertino developer has in store for the iPhone, but when viewed in that light, it makes sense that the M4 is coming to the iPad before the MacBook. Putting such a powerful neural engine into the iPad sets Apple’s tablets up for success in what is likely to be the next big mobile OS battleground.
Ahead of WWDC, the neural engine in the M4 chip will be doing what it always has—enabling some fun magic tricks in Apple-developed programs. “It can do amazing things even faster,” Millett said. “Easily separate a subject from its background in 4K video with just one tap, like in Final Cut Pro.”
It’s impressive, but I’m looking forward to finally applying that kind of power to more robust ends. So far, the M-series’ neural engine has come across as somewhat future-proofing, with much of the AI moved to the cloud rather than running locally. The M4 sets Apple up for the next phase of on-device AI.
When will the M4 chip come to the MacBook?
Apple’s M-series chips aren’t just for the iPad. More traditionally, they start in MacBooks later before the company moves on to iPads. While Apple doesn’t tend to announce new MacBooks until closer to fall, debuting the M4 so early sets the stage for what the next generation of MacBooks will look like.
First, I’m calling it: Get ready for OLED MacBooks. OLED is coming to the MacBook. Expected for yearsAs far as PC laptops are concerned, it is already a mature technology. With the M4 featuring a display engine built specifically to support OLED, there’s no doubt that the next line of MacBooks will follow in the footsteps of the iPad Pro later this year.
OLED may also come to the MacBook Air, despite being reserved for the more expensive iPad model, as the MacBook Pro relies less on the core M-series chip and more on the Pro-level refreshes, which would be the case. M4 Pro, M4 Ultra, and M4 Max. The new MacBooks will also likely integrate with the mobile-first AI initiatives Apple announced at WWDC. This would provide a quick way for the iPhone maker to carve out a niche for itself that Google and Microsoft can’t, as it makes both full computers (sorry, Chromebooks) and smartphones.
What about AI on Windows?
Even as Apple works to set the stage for a big AI showcase later this summer, it will still have to play catch-up. Following Google I/O on May 14, Microsoft has told the media that it will hold a Surface AI event in Seattle on May 20. There, the company will share its “AI vision,” which is set to focus on Windows on Arm.
Sources “familiar with Microsoft’s plans” said the edge In April the company said it believed its new flagship Windows laptops would beat the M3 MacBook Air in CPU performance and AI tasks. Even with the M4 chip now out, which represents a significant threat to Apple—Arm is the same architecture that powers Apple Silicon, and when it comes to power Intel and AMD chips. lags behind, it’s usually far more efficient. If Microsoft can catch Apple on battery life without sacrificing too much power, it will take away one of the MacBooks’ few remaining hardware advantages over a much more diverse array of Windows machines, especially the M4. With limited to tablets by late fall.
It remains to be seen how much power we can expect from Microsoft’s new Windows on ARM machines, which are reportedly powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite.
Credit : lifehacker.com
