Now it's going to be AI everything because they don't know what else to market :/
Except you’re not responding to marketing here. We’re not discussing a piece of marketing.
This whole thread is based on the headline of an article which was copied from another article, the headline of which was probably chosen by an editor. In fact this thread is mostly based on a lot of people overreacting to two words - “AI focused”.
Just because Bloomberg and then MacRumors have decided to characterise the chips that way, doesn’t mean that that is true, how Apple would characterise it or if it frankly matters at all when you can just look at the spec bumps and capabilities and decide for yourself.
When we actually see something from Apple, then we can discuss their marketing and what they do and don’t focus on.
What this story is about is (as someone else said) about the M4 chips having the usual upgrades while also having a more significant/substantial increase in one specialised type of performance. The kind that the neural engine performs.
Now, again, this isn’t marketing. But even if it was, any company is going to market any increase in the capabilities of their hardware.
If the neural engine gets a significant upgrade that significantly improves performance in applications that use it, then it is of course fair and logical to both highlight and market that, when the time comes.
What that extra performance will be, what applications it will be best used and what possible new features
might be possible because of it (if any) is unknown for now.
But again, nothing is being claimed here by Apple. These news articles aren’t Apple press releases.
Nor is “AI” hardware at all new to the Mac (or iPhones/ipad) because the chips have had neural engines designed to perform those specialised workloads for a while. Yet, strangely, I don’t remember people losing their minds over the inclusion of the Neural Engine back then, nor sneering their faces off at it being improved subsequently - until recently.
Lastly it’s really strange to criticise a focus (or not) on increasing the capabilities of your hardware to deliver on certain in-demand applications.
What are Apple meant to do - NOT improve the neural engine despite an increased demand for applications that will require it? Or can they improve their hardware but just never talk about that?
Or are they allowed to talk about it but never mention a certain term because some people have forgotten that said term has been widely used (and debated) in both the engineering AND academic circles of the relevant field since virtually the invention of said field?
Are we going to either just pretend that a whole field of computing isn’t rapidly advancing and bizarrely attempt to ignore it or are we going to spin like tops while hysterically screeching and overreact everytime it’s mentioned?
Is there a third way perhaps?
P.s - have Apple announced a scheme whereby Apple users will be
forced to buy M4 Macs? Where they’ll be
forced to use applications they have no interest in? Maybe I missed a headline announcing that.