Apple cutting back?

[BigRedX]

I've only ever owned Macs. I bought my first one in the early 90s when they were still unfashionable oddities in the computing world, but as has been mentioned earlier in this thread back then there was no serious alternative to Quark XPress for page layout and that was a Mac-only program. I bought my first copy of Logic at the same time which was either a late 1.x or early 2.x.

I'd been using Macs at work since 1990 and before that I had used PCs running DOS, GEM and Windows 2 with a series of very second rate DTP programs that only managed a fraction of the facilities that even v2 of Quark XPress had to offer.

In the past 35 years I've dabbled with Linux, but I found the on-line community very unhelpful in their attitudes regarding newbies and that coupled with the lack of serious native applications to replace InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat means that realistically it's a complete non-starter as the OS for my only computer.

[Arpangel]

I've only ever owned Macs. I bought my first one in the early 90s when they were still unfashionable oddities in the computing world, but as has been mentioned earlier in this thread back then there was no serious alternative to Quark XPress for page layout and that was a Mac-only program. I bought my first copy of Logic at the same time which was either a late 1.x or early 2.x.

I'd been using Macs at work since 1990 and before that I had used PCs running DOS, GEM and Windows 2 with a series of very second rate DTP programs that only managed a fraction of the facilities that even v2 of Quark XPress had to offer.

In the past 35 years I've dabbled with Linux, but I found the on-line community very unhelpful in their attitudes regarding newbies and that coupled with the lack of serious native applications to replace InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop and Acrobat means that realistically it's a complete non-starter as the OS for my only computer.

I’ve got two Mac's, a 2013 iMac 27, and a MacBook Air, I also have a good PC.
I have an urge "just for a change" to get a new Mac, only because my other two Mac's can’t run Logic, I can’t update the OS on them as the software running on them won’t run on later versions required for Logic, so it’s a bit of a awkward situation.

[BigRedX]

I have an urge "just for a change" to get a new Mac, only because my other two Mac's can’t run Logic, I can’t update the OS on them as the software running on them won’t run on later versions required for Logic, so it’s a bit of a awkward situation.

If you've already paid for Logic X or later then you can simply download the most recent version that your current Macs support from the App Store.

You won't get all the latest features, but do you really need them? There's very little I do on my current Mac running Logic 11 that couldn't also do on PowerMac G4 MDD with Logic 4 and a few 3rd party plug-ins.

[OneWorld]

I’m polyamourous when it comes to my OS. I really wanted to buy into Apple way back when, this was back in the 80s It was clear they had a superior product. I was looking for something that allow me to do music on a Computer and there was a product, I’m sure it had ‘mountain’ in the name, it looked very impressive. But the cost was prohibitive, into the £1000’s this at a time when hobby computers were a few £100, and there was also a serious contender, the BBC Micro, which also had music editing, which again, cost more than the computer itself. However I bought into it and was amazed. Then later along came MIDI and the Atari ST, I was enchanted with Casio, Atari and the software. The Atari would even run a version of UNIX from a floppy, and LISP, Prolog too, which meant I could do my academic coding work at home. But then the PC with Windows came along and despite vowing to stick with Atari, I had to walk out on it. I’d also dabbled with LINUX, impressed by the ethos of open source, clearer in some respects a superior product and Windows in its dust, but there are some software products where there is no LINUX equivalent.

And after all that, here I am typing this on my trusty old iPad which is as zippy and reliable as the day I bought it. If it were not for the investment I have made in Windows products, I think I would switch to Apple exclusively.

[Arpangel]

I have an urge "just for a change" to get a new Mac, only because my other two Mac's can’t run Logic, I can’t update the OS on them as the software running on them won’t run on later versions required for Logic, so it’s a bit of a awkward situation.

If you've already paid for Logic X or later then you can simply download the most recent version that your current Macs support from the App Store.

You won't get all the latest features, but do you really need them? There's very little I do on my current Mac running Logic 11 that couldn't also do on PowerMac G4 MDD with Logic 4 and a few 3rd party plug-ins.

I don’t have Logic at all, can I download a previous version?

[BigRedX]

I don’t have Logic at all, can I download a previous version?

I thought you already had a copy of Logic.

Unfortunately you can't buy Logic or any other Apple app unless the Mac you are purchasing it from is capable of running the latest version.

There are ways around this but they involve either abusing the distance selling regulations or knowing a very good friend with a suitably new Mac capable of running the latest version of Logic who doesn't already own a copy.

TBH If you already have a DAW that you get on with I doubt whether Logic will do anything new for you other than dump a whole load of new stuff to learn that will get in the way of actually creating any music.

[Forum Admin]

Apple have been stuck in neutral with their own AI, but they needed to have their hardware ready for when they find forward momentum.

From reading Mark Gurman, Managing Editor at Bloomberg, inside gossip on Apple, seems they will allegedly adopt Google's Gemini on coming devices and iPhones, to catch up and deliver better versions of Siri.

Gemini 3 is awesome, by the way.

[RichardT]

Apple have been stuck in neutral with their own AI, but they needed to have their hardware ready for when they find forward momentum.

From reading Mark Gurman, Managing Editor at Bloomberg, inside gossip on Apple, seems they will allegedly adopt Google's Gemini on coming devices and iPhones, to catch up and deliver better versions of Siri.

Gemini 3 is awesome, by the way.

Gemini is also much more energy efficient than ChatGPT, by a factor of over 50. So a better choice by far for people who are worried by the environmental effects of AI.

[S.Crow]

Apple have been stuck in neutral with their own AI, but they needed to have their hardware ready for when they find forward momentum.

From reading Mark Gurman, Managing Editor at Bloomberg, inside gossip on Apple, seems they will allegedly adopt Google's Gemini on coming devices and iPhones, to catch up and deliver better versions of Siri.

They will also supposedly use Google cloud servers which use Google AI chips, seemingly as a temporary measure.

AI is such a fast moving world that costs staggering sums of money that being late to the game could potentially be an advantage.
Lease from others while getting your strategy in place.

The circular investments between the chip manufacturers and the AI cloud companies is mind blowing.

The fallout from this is potentially horrendous.

With Europe distancing itself from the US in many ways, hopefully the impact here will be less than it would have been otherwise.
It will still be dramatic I imagine.

I can imagine Apple being offered bankrupt data centres cheaply, although they probably have the wrong hardware to run their stack on.

[Forum Admin]

I can imagine Apple being offered bankrupt data centres cheaply, although they probably have the wrong hardware to run their stack on.

Very possibly, though Apple has tons of data centres already and for a good while, since they are what drive and deliver their iCloud email/data storage solutions for customers like me.

[Forum Admin]

Gemini is also much more energy efficient than ChatGPT, by a factor of over 50. So a better choice by far for people who are worried by the environmental effects of AI.

Hi Richard,

On what documents/info/reports have you based this statement? Just interested to read them...

I suspect Gemini is faster because Google has a massive capacity for its Cloud offerings that deliver Gmail, Drive and Google Workspace apps. These servers are probably running nVidia GPUs - or do Google have their own GPU chips? I genuinely do not know.

[RichardT]

Gemini is also much more energy efficient than ChatGPT, by a factor of over 50. So a better choice by far for people who are worried by the environmental effects of AI.

Hi Richard,

On what documents/info/reports have you based this statement? Just interested to read them...

I suspect Gemini is faster because Google has a massive capacity for its Cloud offerings that deliver Gmail, Drive and Google Workspace apps. These servers are probably running nVidia GPUs - or do Google have their own GPU chips? I genuinely do not know.

It looks like I was out of date or wrong. The gap is much closer than that...

https://onestopesg.com/esg-news/chatgpt ... 8640517959

[S.Crow]

Apple have been stuck in neutral with their own AI, but they needed to have their hardware ready for when they find forward momentum.

From reading Mark Gurman, Managing Editor at Bloomberg, inside gossip on Apple, seems they will allegedly adopt Google's Gemini on coming devices and iPhones, to catch up and deliver better versions of Siri.

I can imagine Apple being offered bankrupt data centres cheaply, although they probably have the wrong hardware to run their stack on.

Very possibly, though Apple has tons of data centres already and for a good while, since they are what drive and deliver their iCloud email/data storage solutions for customers like me.

I suspect Gemini is faster because Google has a massive capacity for its Cloud offerings that deliver Gmail, Drive and Google Workspace apps. These servers are probably running nVidia GPUs - or do Google have their own GPU chips? I genuinely do not know.

“Mark Gurman, recently disclosed that Apple is planning to launch a dedicated Siri chatbot that will run on Google's own TPUs and cloud infrastructure, possibly leased by Apple.”

Some of the trillion dollar companies have their own proprietary dedicated AI chips in their data centres and some also have their own proprietary general purpose server CPUs too.

Having your own data centres with general purpose servers for email and storage is very different to having AI data centres.

The power requirements of AI data centres is much higher and denser.
At this point, power might be the number one scarcity issue and on top of that you have water requirements.

I think Meta have built multiple Gigawatt gas-powered generators on site, as well building new power stations further away just to supply one data centre.

With regards to AI chips, you need chips for training and also for inferencing.
If Apple are using Gemini, then Google will have trained the models.

They license the models and also lease servers from Google for inferencing I assume and these contain Google custom AI chips optimised for inferencing.
Apple will have their own AI inferencing chips which are being developed in partnership with Broadcom.

It seems more important for Apple to first have their own AI data centres for inferencing, so that it’s all in house which is better for privacy.

Not sure what their plans are for the training, but due to the current AI arms race, it seems wise to control your own destiny.

Elon Musk is ‘talking’ about building large-scale semiconductor fabrication plants.
Massive vertically integrated facilities to produce logic chips, memory, and packaging all in one location and seemingly in the USA.

Not quite as difficult as colonising Mars or building self-driving cars, but a very daunting task and especially when starting from zero.

[Forum Admin]

Gemini is also much more energy efficient than ChatGPT, by a factor of over 50. So a better choice by far for people who are worried by the environmental effects of AI.

Hi Richard,

On what documents/info/reports have you based this statement? Just interested to read them...

I suspect Gemini is faster because Google has a massive capacity for its Cloud offerings that deliver Gmail, Drive and Google Workspace apps. These servers are probably running nVidia GPUs - or do Google have their own GPU chips? I genuinely do not know.

It looks like I was out of date or wrong. The gap is much closer than that...

https://onestopesg.com/esg-news/chatgpt ... 8640517959

Thanks for the link. So roughly 68 percent of global chatbot usage based on visits and interactions for ChatGPT. While Gemini is the fastest-growing challenger, capturing around 18.2 percent of market share.

The 13.8 percent of crumbs on that table are shared by Perplexity, Grok, DeepSeek and others.

Interesting.

[ConcertinaChap]

Elon Musk is ‘talking’ about building large-scale semiconductor fabrication plants.
Massive vertically integrated facilities to produce logic chips, memory, and packaging all in one location and seemingly in the USA.

Glad you put 'talking' in quotes. Musk is very good at talking; delivery seems to be a bit harder.

CC

[RichardT]

Trump is showing signs that he won't accept the results of the mid-terms - throwing out the idea that the GOP should run the elections, and that he will only accept 'honest' results.

Now it could be hot air, but if it's not, then Apple will suffer a massive consumer backlash outside the US - after all, most creatives are not Trump fans.

[OneWorld]

If there was anything that was to interest me in Apple products it is the new 'Creative Studio' I think it was called. There was an article on it here in SOS, but the article came and went. I only had chance to read what I could briefly but the impression I got was that Apple was to offer product specifically with creatives in mind, that being including Logic, plus image and video products too, there were other related products too, seemingly an all-in-one product.

And I thought hmmmm, once having bought a computer with the requisite spec, and all the software tools all bundled together as one package. As near as one could be to a turnkey product, in the box?

Found it....
https://www.soundonsound.com/news/apple ... tor-studio

[garrettendi]

That looks really good value, but I'm happy with Linux/Reaper for now. Although I do use a Logic Pro theme in Reaper...

[OneWorld]

Whether it's Mac or Microsoft, I get the feeling in my waters that the desktop computer is going to become extinct. The push to become subsumed by AI will become increasingly difficult to resist.

AI is processed at one of the ever increasing number of Data Centres, that's where the processing power will reside, not on the itsy bitsy CPU we have on our computers. Our computers will become nothing but terminals, not having the processing power required to do the more complex AI, and with a projected figure of several £1000 for one of the nVidia cards, who will be able to afford them anyway? And has anyone seen the prices of RAM these days?

Now, it occurs, to whom will all this centralized data and processing be of especial interest to? Let me hypothetically factor in the 'National Security' justification for unfettered access to the machines where that data is stored and processed?

Interestingly, that universal access might allow 'fake news' to be scattered about the firmanent. I have listening to a Professor Mark Owen, who claimed that the video showing Maduro being escorted off the plane was an AI video and more concerning, it is known that Musk circulated a video on X showing Venezuelans celebrating on the streets was fake, it is claimed not because the intention was to fool the world, but to get the story out first, before the flurry of videos appearing on YouTube.

It might be that Apple is cutting back, but I reckon it is more to do with current developments as opposed to dwindling markets. When I see the bosses of the Magnificent 7 all clamouring to cosy up to Trump, they are sat on possibly the most potent weapon available to a hegemon - the purveyor and controller of information beyond all compare. Now why o earth would they have wanted TikTok? Doesn't take much working out.

Yes, there are open source AI 'products' and like LINUX, they are worthy products too, but I have tried to make use of them, as expected, the downloads, because of the vast data component, and the need for quite a brute of a computer, I couldn't even contemplate making use of such software, and very complex to set up too.

Of course there are the online offerings that we are all becoming more familiar with, for a subscription of 'Only $30 a month' but once all our Apples and Windows computers become less of a computer and more of a terminal, and we are joined at the hip to the data centres, how long will it be that the $
30 a month becomes a $100 a month?

And using your PC as a PC and stay beyond the reach of the data centres and those so paranoid they trot out 'National Security' to keep our data regarding daft cats and shuffle dancers under scrutiny? Well, the price of RAM is set to eclipse the price of gold, "The Computer is Dead, Long Live Computer"(well terminal at least)

Apple recently announced a $500 billion investment to be built in the USA - Speaks volumes

[Arpangel]

I don’t have Logic at all, can I download a previous version?

I thought you already had a copy of Logic.

Unfortunately you can't buy Logic or any other Apple app unless the Mac you are purchasing it from is capable of running the latest version.

There are ways around this but they involve either abusing the distance selling regulations or knowing a very good friend with a suitably new Mac capable of running the latest version of Logic who doesn't already own a copy.

TBH If you already have a DAW that you get on with I doubt whether Logic will do anything new for you other than dump a whole load of new stuff to learn that will get in the way of actually creating any music.

I like the restful smooth look of Logic, and the colours of the plug-in's are nice, as a user of Reaper for years, it’s a bit hard and utilitarian in comparison, even though I owe my musical life to it, and wouldn’t stop using it.
I just fancy a separate Logic set-up, a stand alone system, just for a change when I feel like it, I’ll see how I get on with it.
Maybe a Mac Mini, and a generic big screen, not Apple.

[Kwackman]

and the colours of the plug-in's are nice

It's a shock that this is never mentioned in reviews....

[Arpangel]

and the colours of the plug-in's are nice

It's a shock that this is never mentioned in reviews....

It is, and to people like me it could be a deal breaker.

[Forum Admin]

If there was anything that was to interest me in Apple products it is the new 'Creative Studio' I think it was called. There was an article on it here in SOS, but the article came and went. I only had chance to read what I could briefly but the impression I got was that Apple was to offer product specifically with creatives in mind, that being including Logic, plus image and video products too, there were other related products too, seemingly an all-in-one product.

And I thought hmmmm, once having bought a computer with the requisite spec, and all the software tools all bundled together as one package. As near as one could be to a turnkey product, in the box?

Found it....
https://www.soundonsound.com/news/apple ... tor-studio

All SOS News remains on our site forever, so use the Search tool (yeah, I know, it is cr*p).

[OneWorld]

If there was anything that was to interest me in Apple products it is the new 'Creative Studio' I think it was called. There was an article on it here in SOS, but the article came and went. I only had chance to read what I could briefly but the impression I got was that Apple was to offer product specifically with creatives in mind, that being including Logic, plus image and video products too, there were other related products too, seemingly an all-in-one product.

And I thought hmmmm, once having bought a computer with the requisite spec, and all the software tools all bundled together as one package. As near as one could be to a turnkey product, in the box?

Found it....
https://www.soundonsound.com/news/apple ... tor-studio

All SOS News remains on our site forever, so use the Search tool (yeah, I know, it is cr*p).

Well. I'm with you there, that's for sure

[Arpangel]

Another cut back, BMW have closed a lot of their service centres, including ours.
We are due an essential service and booked it in yesterday, the reception it was the complete opposite of our old friendly centre, it was like talking to a very rude machine "no, it’s 3.30 or nothing, how would you like to proceed" all she needed was the Dalek voice.
Why are they cutting back, money of course, but why? Not selling enough cars?