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Apple’s worry isn’t the hardware, they’ve got that covered. It’s the lack of AI integration in macOS and iOS. They’re beyond late to the party. AI will revolutionise the industry, and Apple will be left behind.

IMO, Jobs would have seen this coming years ago and skated to where the puck will be, rather than where it is like Cook has done.
It's still relatively early. AI is promising but it is where the Internet was in the late 1990s. And AI is also not the last great thing. There will be something new in another 10-15 years as well. Microsoft completely missed the boat on mobile in the late 2000s but has come back strong with AI.
 
No word on if the Surface Pro is faster than the MacBook Pro as well as the Air? 🤔

The silence from Microsoft makes me think they can't compete with the MacBook Pro yet... still, good for them that their Pro device is faster than a fan-less laptop that throttles under heavy workloads. :p

Not a Surface, but same chip as it. From The Verge:

McElroy claimed they’re about 17 percent faster than a similarly specced MacBook Pro with an M3 processor. HP chose to compare its new laptops to the MacBook Pro instead of the Air because both the MacBook Pro and HP’s laptops use small fans to keep their Arm processors cool, while the Air uses passive cooling.
 
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Microsoft spent most of the presentation comparing the Surface Pro to the MacBook Air. While Microsoft may not compete much with Apple directly, their partners such as Dell, HP, and ASUS do.
The presentation was not to win over Mac users, I think, it was to reassure existing windows users that their technology is not being left behind.

Windows users will always have to pay for software, word processing, movie making, spreadsheets, garage band, quality photo processing and curation. Mac users get the software bundled.

I don’t believe that Microsoft can easily win back a significant share of Mac users because of the software experience, hence they’re about keeping their existing base happy.
 
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But it has a fan. Look at the vents. Nice machine, but maybe a little deceptive advertising (I'm guessing, perhaps they addressed this?)
 
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Faster at catching viruses. But seriously, Good. Let it be. The faster the better. How about making iOS more useful. I want that 1300 iPad but can’t justify it because the os is hampering it.
 
People that buy these work in Office and browsers. Same with the Air. The hardware could be running chromeos as far as most of them are concerned. Windows or macOS, it barely batters anymore because they are all competent and state of the art launchers for MS Office and Chrome.
So many people mostly interact with web apps now.
 
No one is saying that, but developing a car probably wasn't the best idea. Who knows how many billions Apple sunk into that failed project. That one didn't make sense at all given cars are a low margin item and Apple is in the business of producing high margin ones.
Hard to say if it was a "failure". I agree that they didn't make a car. The more important question is, "what did Apple learn in the process?" If they learned/discovered/created nothing then it is indeed sunk costs. Hopefully, this Apple car experiment will lead to other things in the future.
 
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Microsoft is going all in on AI, today introducing a series of Copilot+ PCs that have AI-focused hardware. The new Surface Pro is one of the first Copilot+ PCs, equipped with Qualcomm's Arm-based Snapdragon X Elite processor.

microsoft-surface-pro-qualcomm.jpg

Microsoft is already pitting the Surface Pro against Apple's M3 MacBook Air, and in marketing materials, claims that the Surface Pro has superior processing power and battery life. Compared to the 15-inch MacBook Air with 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU, the Surface Pro and other Copilot+ PCs with 12-core and 10-core processors offer 58 percent better sustained multithreaded performance (based on Cinebench benchmarks).

As for battery life, Copilot+ PCs support up to 15 hours of web browsing or 22 hours of local video playback. The MacBook Air models offer the same 15 hours of wireless web browsing, but only 18 hours of local video playback.

According to The Verge, Microsoft's demonstrations for media included several comparisons of the Surface Pro compared to the MacBook Air, and the Surface Pro came out on top in many of them. Windows PCs have struggled to keep up with Apple silicon in recent years, but it appears that Qualcomm's technology is catching up.

The Surface Pro is a 2-in-1 laptop that runs Windows, and it has an OLED display, much like Apple's newly launched iPad Pro models. It weighs under two pounds, supports Wi-Fi 7, and has advanced AI capabilities enabled by the neural processing unit.

Pricing on the Surface Pro starts at $1,000, but the version with OLED display and Snapdragon X Elite chip, 16GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD is priced starting at $1,500. Microsoft today also introduced the Surface Laptop with the same Snapdragon X Elite chip, with pricing that starts at $1,299.

The Surface devices will arrive to customers starting on June 18.

Article Link: Microsoft Says New Surface Pro is Faster Than 15" M3 MacBook Air

Downside: It runs Windows. :/
 
Microsoft is already pitting the Surface Pro against Apple's M3 MacBook Air, and in marketing materials, claims that the Surface Pro has superior processing power and battery life. Compared to the 15-inch MacBook Air with 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU, the Surface Pro and other Copilot+ PCs with 12-core and 10-core processors offer 58 percent better sustained multithreaded performance (based on Cinebench benchmarks).
Too bad this has nothing against M4, which is likely already smoked the Snapdragon’s benchmark.

And it’ll be further behind when M4 Pro, M4 Max and M4 Ultra is announced later this year.

Also I call Microsoft’s benchmark BS. Until it’s been tested in real life, it should be taken with grain of salt.
 
Who should be more embarrassed Intel or Apple (for losing the silicon talent that went on to form Nuvia)?
 
Sadly Apple wasted their opportunity by releasing the same processor four times in a row and spent their research budget on failed projects.
They had to.

Bear in mind that IOS has a lifespan that does get to diminishing returns - we're already seeing it. There have been no major innovations in IOS - both iPhone and iPad - in the last few years. Iterative improvements on technology we are already aware of. Software improvements are marginal at best. These aren't bad, but they're becoming less and less differentiating from competitors.

But here's the rub: They dug the hole they're stuck in. Can they open up to AI? Not with their privacy stance. No judgements but let's understand that Apple isn't especially about protecting privacy in the same way they claim to protect you about security - they really just don't want to acknowledge potential competition. If it isn't native Apple, it shouldn't exist (for example, the infamous Steve Jobs and Dropbox meeting). So they won't leverage any external LLM sources, etc. And this will delay and further limit them while Android phones have innovations going where the market just goes.

Apple's silicon, while great, also suffers from the same. Intel is no longer the sole player for Windows and we'll start seeing low-power ARM Windows devices, in turn invading on the iPad and MacOS space. Apple has a major challenge to truly keep up with a company that solely produces CPUs, as well as innovates to suit modern needs. Snapdragon for Windows is a major upset for Apple at this point, because ARM for Windows is actually at a great spot. Hate Windows all you want, but Apple isn't exactly going to gain market on a competitor that can now do literally everything that Apple can do at a lesser price point.

Apple produces great tech and it's very well built, but the edge that IOS had for the last 10 years is ending. Androids can do everything that IOS can do already, and sometimes, better. Apple needs to differentiate and distinguish in ways that aren't solely "exclusivity" ... or languish.
 
Wow. A 12 core processor is 50% higher multithreaded performance than 8 core. Who would have thought. Bet that’s not iso power though
Those 12 are all performance cores rather than 4 performance and 4 efficiency cores. They only match the single core average of an M3 performance and efficiency core.
 
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