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Apple Private Cloud Compute Curiosities
Apple announced a significant development at this year’s WWDC: the creation of its own cloud infrastructure named “Private Cloud Compute” for securely handling certain Apple Intelligence requests. As an IT professional working in data center technologies, I have a few questions that remain unanswered even after watching John Gruber’s The Talk Show Live:
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What CPU is used in each server? I wonder if Apple is utilizing high-end versions of its Apple Silicon chips. It’s worth noting that there was no update to the Mac Studio this year. Is Apple diverting M3 Max or M3 Ultra production to build its Private Cloud Compute data centers (which currently feature 32 Neural Engine cores in the M2 Ultra)?
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What type of case design is Apple using for the servers? Are they modified versions of the Mac mini, or are they using a rack-mount variant of the Mac Studio?
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Is Apple deploying data centers only in the United States or across multiple continents? I suspect the latter, for the sake of redundancy and capacity.
I expect that sometime in the future, perhaps at WWDC 2025, Apple may reveal details about the first year of Apple Intelligence in a short video. We’ll have to wait and see.
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Refreshing take also a good reminder:
@stroughtonsmith After seeing WWDC, I’m actually buying a iPad Air M2 next to my mini 6. But I have never seen and expected iPad as anything more than what Jobs used in his introduction. Never replacing my Mac, never replacing my iPhone.
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Two Highly Different Approaches
Microsoft is recalling “Recall” after all, and this makes them look rather bad. This happens on the same week of Apple revealing Apple Intelligence which received a more positive set of reactions.
We are witnessing two different approaches to the challenge of intelligently integrating generative AI prowess to the base operating system. These two events couldn’t be more evocative of how different Apple and Microsoft strategy and culture are. Guess which approach I prefer? I’m excited for Apple Intelligence, but I appreciate the time it will take to make it right.
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Reddit can be a toxic environment, with bullies and users who aggressively enforce their views on what is appropriate content for a specific subreddit. Today is a bad day for me. 😞 How should I react to this?
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Referring to this post from MacStories’ Viticci, I might be living or coming from a different planet, but I do not want to block any of my sites from AI bot crawlers, none of them, even if it is from Google, OpenAI, Apple or even Meta. I want to embrace this new era while being critical to what is happening. More to come soon.
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Two of my preferred visual things in iOS 181 is the colorful visual effect of Siri and the default wallpaper, which is also very nice. Siri animation is so relaxing and less intrusive than the big colorful ball. These are small changes but welcomed changes nonetheless.
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I’m not using iOS 18 yet. Should be later in the summer, late in August, I guess. ↩︎
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I’ll save money with Apple Intelligence in the next 12 months as indicated in my subscriptions page. #apple #appleevent #wwdc24 #wwdc
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Mind blown. That’s all for now. More thoughts to come soon. 🤯 #wwdc #apple #appleevent #wwdc24
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Fun fact: The only time I use the TV.app on my Mac is to watch Apple event. #apple #appleevent #wwdc #wwdc24
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Well, happy WWDC / dubdub day from Numeric Citizen, following Apple since 1982! #apple #appleevent #wwdc #wwdc24
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Apple Intelligence & Current Apple Silicon
If Apple Intelligence1 requires a new generation of hardware to be fully appreciated, I would be surprised and be a little sad. My expectation would be that last year’s generation of hardware should be, at the minimum, enough. Otherwise, it might send a wrong message that even current Apple Silicon isn’t enough to power generative AI-based experience. How could this be, after all, Apple always brag about its silicon superiority. Tim Cook said that their silicon was their current competitive edge… but was he referring to future chips only? I hope not.
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Provided it’s the real name. ↩︎
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It’s Sunday, and it’s time for the new edition of My Creative Summary newsletter! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I love putting it together!
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Apple's AI Push at WWDC 2024
“Apple will put a major emphasis on AI at its upcoming WWDC, as the company aims to catch up to competitors in this rapidly evolving space. While Apple’s approach has been more measured, the pressure is on to provide a clear growth narrative, which its AI initiatives may struggle to directly deliver. Unlike Microsoft and NVIDIA, Apple does not have an obvious path to monetize AI, instead focusing on using the technology to enhance its existing products and services.” — ChatGPT summarizing this article from M.G. Siegler.
I’m more than ok that Apple doesn’t try to monetize their AI journey.
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In case you didn’t know me, I’m on this week’s People & Blog edition. It was fun to answer Manuel Moreale’s questions.
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Here's Why I Hate Template In Office Work
Using templates in office work can sometimes be counterproductive, leading to less original thinking, reduced engagement, and fewer creative problem-solving opportunities. Templates can make it easy to fall into a routine of just filling in blanks, resulting in more generic outputs and a checkbox mentality. This reliance on templates can also make it challenging to adapt and innovate when a task doesn’t fit the template. To keep creativity and innovation alive, it’s helpful to use templates as a starting point while encouraging team members to think critically and adapt as needed.
Some of my colleagues are highly dependant on them, I’m not. I’m staying away from them. It’s a creative thinking killer.
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The narrated blog posts are now working correctly on my blog. You can listen to the first post and second one. Disclaimer: I’m using Adobe Podcast Enhance Speech for the post recording audio improvements.
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The M4 iPad Pro Regression Nobody is Talking About
The new M4 iPad Pro, with its repositioned FaceID camera, feels like a step backward compared to the 2018 iPad Pro. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but I frequently receive prompts to enter my PIN due to failed FaceID attempts. Swiping up to unlock the device momentarily covers the camera and sensors, disrupting the process. While Apple may have enhanced the FaceTime experience, the unlocking experience has become more frustrating. In my opinion, this is a significant regression.
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This is an Audiocast — A Narrated Blog Post
This is my second narrated blog post on Micro.blog. It seems to me that writing for sharing as a text-only post triggers different strings for me than writing for a narrated text post. It feels strange because this isn’t a podcast episode. There is no introduction, no conclusion. No background music either. Yet, I find this cool because this is going to be available also to my podcast subscribers. Because of that, I call this an audiocast since the textual transcription (the writing) is done before the audio recording. Audiocast: this word doesn’t exist, isn’t it? Remember that you read it, and heard it here first.
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For the first time since joining Mastodon, I wanted to get an idea of what was happening with ChatGPT1. I conducted a search using the #chaptgpt tag to see the live updates. This was something I used to do frequently when I was on Twitter while big events were happening.
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ChatGPT suffered major downtime in recent hours if not days. ↩︎
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