Wen | Lei Technology

This year, after Apple announced the cancellation of the car-making plan, it finally made up its mind to allocate more energy to the AI project. The M3 MacBook Air just released and the upcoming iOS 18 correspond to Apple’s first answer sheet on the AI PC and AI mobile phone tracks respectively.

IOS 18 has not yet been released, and everyone can only guess Apple’s next move from many sources. However, judging from the performance of the released M3 MacBook Air, it seems that the number of AI computing cores, performance and even NPU of M3 chips are difficult to support Apple’s AI PC business in the face of the encirclement formed by a variety of AI PC competing products in the market. The new M3 MacBook Air was sold at a discount of $100 on Amazon only one month after it was put on the shelves.

However, the situation that M3 chip alone supports Apple AI PC is about to change: Apple M4 series chips may have to meet with you in advance. Mark Gurman, a reporter from Bloomberg, pointed out in the latest issue of Power On newsletter that Apple’s M4 chip is close to the mass production stage, and it will be loaded into the latest Mac devices as soon as the end of this year. The focus of this series of chips will be on improving the performance of handling AI tasks.

M4 chip focuses on AI performance and will cover the full-stack product line of Mac.

Considering that Apple released M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max chips in October last year, Mark Gurman predicted that Apple would also launch M4 series chips around October this year. Last year, M3 series chips were sought after by many consumers for their performance, dynamic cache, mesh coloring and rendering, and hardware-level ray tracing acceleration technology.

This year, the upgrade of M4 series chips will focus on the number of AI computing cores, efficiency and NPU. It is reported that the M4 series chips to be produced by Apple are expected to have at least three main models, namely, the low-end chip Donan, the mid-end chip Brava and the high-end chip Hidra. The above names are all code names, and the officially listed names are likely to follow the M4, M4 Pro, M4 Max and M4 Ultra of M3.

Not only that, M4 series chips will also cover the whole Mac product line. Among them, the new iMac, entry-level 14-inch MacBook Pro, high-end 14-inch MacBook Pro, 16-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini models will be the first batch of MAC products equipped with M4 series chips, which are expected to be launched one after another from the end of this year to the beginning of next year.

In the first quarter of 2025, Apple will update the 13-inch and 15-inch M4 MacBook Air models, update the Mac Studio in the middle of the year, and update the Mac Pro in the third or fourth quarter.

Apple reorganized the Mac product line with M4 series chips, which has different significance for different products in the product line. For Mac mini, Mac Pro and Mac Studio, this is a rare intergenerational update. Previously, the latest models of the three products were only equipped with M2 chip, and their performance had already lagged behind other Mac products. Whether Apple directly skipped M3 chip and upgraded to M4 chip or inserted M3 chip into the original update rhythm step by step, with the current news, it is still impossible to draw a conclusion.

However, Lei Technology believes that according to Apple’s habit, it is not impossible for Apple to release M3 and M4 products at the same time, so the price of M4 products may hit a new high in this series.

For the newly upgraded M3 MacBook Air, it is expected that the M4 model released next year will exert great sales pressure on M3 model, and the shortened update time may make some consumers feel at ease as a "waiting party", and then make a decision after the release of M4 MacBook Air. This also means that M3 MacBook Air will accelerate the clearance and dumping of goods, which is expected to be greatly promoted at key promotion nodes such as 618.

The significance of AI Mac to Apple has surpassed the product itself.

According to the global PC sales in 2023 released by data research organization IDC, in the fourth quarter of 2023, the global PC shipments were about 259.5 million units, down 13.9% compared with 2022. Among them, Apple’s shipments ranked fourth, down 22.4% year-on-year. Although Apple’s shipments in the fourth quarter of 2023 improved, increasing by 10.1% year-on-year, from the annual data, Apple’s decline in the PC market is very obvious, and the decline rate far exceeds that of other PC manufacturers.

In fact, not only in the PC market, but also in other fields. A series of events such as the "Titan" project shelved for ten years, the iPad shipment was overtaken by Huawei tablet, the word-of-mouth of Vision Pro was extended, and the price of iPhone 15 series was successively reduced, which made Apple feel overwhelmed.

The outside world is generally not optimistic about Apple’s expectations, which is embodied in the investment market. As of the close of the US stock market on April 10, Apple’s share price has fallen by about 13% this year. It was not until the news that M4 series chips reorganized the Mac product line came out that Apple’s share price rose, with a total increase of more than 5% in two days.

It can be seen that the significance of AI Mac to Apple has far exceeded the scope of ordinary products. It represents the apple that the outside world wants to see more, and it also means that Apple has finally returned to the "right track" that the public thinks. Apple continues to iterate AI Mac products through M4 series chips. On the one hand, it can inject new power into the Mac product line whose shipments are already declining in 2023 and stimulate the sales of the Mac product line; On the other hand, AI PC has become the hottest topic in the PC market. Many PC manufacturers have either launched the first AI PC or are on the way to release it. If Apple keeps the iterative pace of the past few years, it is likely that the PC shipments in 2024 will further decline.

M4 Mac will add another fire to AI PC.

If we want to select the hottest keywords in the technology industry in 2024, Lei Technology believes that it is "AI". At present, AI has penetrated into all walks of life. AI mobile phone, AI TV, AI audio, AI kitchen appliances, AI music, AI headphones and the AI PC we are talking about today all represent the reconstruction of an industry by AI.

Microsoft and Glory have successively released their own AI PC products. Whether it is Microsoft’s Surface Pro 10 commercial version and Surface Laptop 6 commercial version, or the glory MagicBook Pro 16, they are all highly anticipated by their respective manufacturers.

In addition, Microsoft and Qualcomm jointly built the Snapdragon X Elite chip, and plan to launch the Surface product with this processor later this year. It is reported that Microsoft executives are very satisfied with the performance of Snapdragon X Elite chip, and think that it can surpass Apple’s MacBook Air equipped with M3 chip in terms of CPU performance and handling various AI tasks.

Lenovo also plans to officially release the first real AI PC on the 18th of this month. The biggest highlight of this product is that it will be equipped with a personal model AI TWIN (artificial intelligence twin) with a local knowledge base. According to the official introduction, the so-called AI TWIN means that by establishing a local knowledge base on the device, you can better understand the user’s behavior habits, even predict tasks according to your thinking mode, and find solutions on your own. It eventually evolved into a digital extension of users, just like twins.

It can be said that almost all PC manufacturers are going further and further on the road of AI PC. The addition of Apple’s AI Mac has made the already highly competitive PC industry more chaotic. Although Apple’s PC shipments in 2023 are not ideal, I believe that no PC manufacturer can ignore the influence of Apple products.

It’s better than Microsoft. The joint venture with Qualcomm to build Snapdragon X Elite chip only claims that its performance exceeds M3 MacBook Air. When Apple officially launches M4 series chips, perhaps the current PC industry will usher in a new round of reshuffle.

With AI hardware alone, Apple can’t turn the tide.

Apple’s "toothpaste-squeezing" update is nothing new. Although the performance of M3 series chips is basically improved by 10%-20% compared with M2 series, it obviously cannot meet the high expectations of some users for its performance. At present, we still don’t know how much the M4 series chips have improved compared with the M3 series chips. According to the news, the M4 series chips that are highly anticipated by Apple may really bring a good competitive advantage to Apple’s Mac product line.

However, no matter how superior the hardware conditions are, they can’t be separated from the landing scene after all, and users’ judgment on the quality of product experience comes more from practical applications. On M3 MacBook Air, we have seen the native functions of the system, such as real-time speech to text, translation, text prediction, visual understanding, and auxiliary functions, as well as the AI functions under the AI application ecology, such as Pixelmator Pro automatically enhancing photos and CapCut eliminating background noise in videos.

Although these functions are not amazing, they are quite satisfactory, but Lei Technology believes that AI Mac has not really played the traditional advantages of Apple’s ecology, such as using OS to connect different devices in series and build an application ecosystem, or launching AI OS for the era of generative AGI (universal artificial intelligence).

Recently, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple had a discussion with Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, which are owned by Alphabet. It is not excluded to introduce one or more AI models into iOS 18 to provide the news of generating AI chat robot function for iOS system, and related news of cooperation with Baidu has also been reported in China.

If Apple is only an AI hardware provider, this win-win approach is obviously wise, but Apple is a technology company famous for its innovation and intelligence. In the short term, adopting alternatives may be acceptable to most users, but in the long run, this practice will always fall into the next ride. This is still the case in the mobile phone market. If Apple adopts a similar approach in the PC market, I believe that even if the M4 series chips with super performance are launched, it will be difficult to reverse the current unfavorable situation of Apple in the PC market.

Lei Technology still hopes that Apple can develop more eco-related practical applications on the new AI Mac and bring more AI usage scenarios to users. If it can really reach the above level, perhaps M4 series chips will lead Apple’s Mac product line to rebound.

　　Seeing that Wang Longjiang in the same village raised chickens with the young secretary Fan, he earned 50,000 to 60,000 yuan in less than half a year. Wang Xiulan, a farmer in Wangxinzhuang Village, Dongerying Town, Jizhou District, Tianjin, recently contracted 8 mu of land and raised more than 1,000 chickens, and he is also going to do a big job with Fan.

　　The "Xiao Fan" in the villagers’ mouth is Fan Sichao, secretary of the Party branch and director of the village committee of Wang Xinzhuang Village. He is from Shanxi. At the age of 28, he has been rooted in this humble village in the northern mountainous area of Tianjin for three years. Under the leadership of Fan Sichao, the once-troubled "backward village" has now become a "four-star village", and he has also become the most trusted secretary of the villagers.

　　The fate between Fan Sichao and the countryside originated from a choice in college. In 2017, he was selected as a student of "Young Marxists Training Project" (hereinafter referred to as "Qingma Project"). In this "big school" that trains socialist builders and successors for the party, he found the direction of life — — Determined to go to the grassroots level where the motherland needs it most to temper youth. After graduation, he applied for remote towns and villages, and became a "shoulder-to-shoulder" in Wang Xinzhuang village. Now he has settled down in the village with his wife and children, and he is bent on bringing the villagers to get rich.

　　Over the past few years, going to the grassroots and going to the places where the motherland needs it most has become a firm choice for groups of Tianjin Youth Horse students. Liu Xiangfeng, secretary of the Tianjin Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League, said that only by suffering greatly can we become great talents and shoulder great responsibilities. Facing the grassroots and paying attention to practice are the living souls of Tianjin’s "Green Horse Project". Over the past five years, Tianjin Youth Horse Project has selected and trained more than 20,000 students. Most of the young horse students who have graduated from colleges and universities have taken root in the grassroots front line, and many "Fan Sichao" are working in ordinary posts, making their youth turn into steel.

　　Solve grassroots problems with the power of youth.

　　Every young horse student has to carry out a cumulative two-month practical exercise in the relatively difficult agriculture-related street town. This is a course of "hardening bones and strengthening seedlings" prepared by the Tianjin Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League for young horse students, encouraging outstanding young people to take responsibility in "hard work posts" and key tasks.

　　When Yang Can, a student of the 15th training course of "Qingma Project" in Nankai University, took part in practical exercise in Dongmen Village, Zhuanglang County, Gansu Province, he deeply understood a truth: sitting in the office is full of problems, and going deep into the grassroots is full of solutions.

　　Before leaving, this excellent student was eager to try — — After hundreds of hours of theoretical study at school, the core meaning is to learn to "analyze and solve problems with Marxist standpoints, viewpoints and methods". This time, I finally hope to "get out of the ivory tower and draw my sword and try to sharpen my edge".

　　Unexpectedly, she was discouraged on the first day. Dongmen Village is the largest village in the town. More than 2,000 villagers live in the mountains and hills. Most of the young and middle-aged people go out to work. The village is full of left-behind children, the elderly and women. There are problems everywhere in the work.

　　Yang can, who is good at observing, found that village cadres have a way. They told Yang Lan that they could hold the key group of the square dance team and publicize policies to the villagers. When providing educational services for school-age left-behind children, you can contact their parents who work outside the home.

　　From the simple village cadres, Yang can learned that if you really want to work, you should not only study theory, but also have "folk wisdom". She recorded her thoughts: "What can I do as a young horse student in colleges and universities?"

　　She and her classmates took action and found that the sales of local agricultural products such as potatoes were not smooth, so they went to the fields to observe and study, and launched more than 10 live broadcasts to "endorse" agricultural products; They organized returning college students to form a special youth commando for volunteer service, visited from house to house, and helped villagers to complete trivial work such as activating medical insurance cards. They joined the summer practice team of the school medical college to carry out online remote consultation for the left-behind elderly; Summer interest classes for left-behind children & HELIP; …

　　The problems at the grassroots level constantly inspire the wisdom and enthusiasm of young people, and the "Youth Horse Project" is like the "heart" of talent training, constantly pumping fresh blood to the "nerve endings" of the motherland.

　　In the past five years, Tianjin Qingma students have worked hard in grass-roots party building, rural revitalization, letters and visits, etc., and accumulated more than 80,000 hours of practical training at the hard grassroots level, doing more than 1,000 practical things for the masses. In the red holy land, poverty alleviation workshops and fields, young backbones feel the pulse of the industry at the forefront and tap the heartbeat of national development. Yang Can said: "The magnificent blueprint for the development of the motherland inspires us, highlights the mission of the young Malays, and leads more young people to join the torrent of endeavor, experience the wind and rain, see the world and grow their talents."

　　"Theory+Practice" Training System Discover and Recommend Young Backbone

　　Hao Yuxiao, who was born in 1999 and grew up in a big city, also asked himself when he was selected into Tianjin Qingma Class: Can he take the road of taking root and serving the people? Do you really have the ability to shoulder the heavy responsibility of the times for rural revitalization?

　　When studying the advanced deeds of Comrade Jiao Yulu under Jiao Tong in Lankao, Henan Province, the Jiao Yulu spirit I learned in books seems to be more three-dimensional. Hao Yuxiao remembered a sentence: Nothing can keep history, but people can. Feelings for the people have also become his ideological "ballast stone" for serving the grassroots and serving the people in the future.

　　When I first came to work in Heyi Village, Shuangkou Town, Beichen District, Hao Yuxiao, as a "grassroots white", the first move to open the work situation was to exchange sincerity for sincerity. This chubby boy has a good temper and a sweet mouth. When he works in the village, he bites an "uncle" and an "aunt", which makes those villagers who just have some emotions "clear up after the rain" quickly. After work, he likes to take a walk in the village, go to the villagers’ homes to have a chat, see if the elderly need help, listen to the villagers’ heartfelt words, and occasionally try the "love meal" cooked by his aunts. Soon, he won a good popularity in the village and his work became more and more smooth.

　　“‘ Tsing Ma Project ’ The talent training process not only pays attention to ideological forging, but also gives full play to the power of on-site practical teaching. " The relevant person in charge of the School Department of the Tianjin Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League introduced that the implementation plan of the "Qingma Project" in Tianjin has been carefully designed. "The plan was studied and approved by the Standing Committee of the Municipal Party Committee, and the city leaders had many discussions and exchanges with the Qingma students, which was promoted at a high level and coordinated. This is also Tianjin ‘ Tsing Ma Project ’ The key to quickly improving quality, expanding area and increasing efficiency. "

　　In recent years, the Tianjin Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League has gradually explored and formed the "124" work system of the "Youth Horse Project", which is a core mission: to discover, cultivate and recommend a group of young political backbones; Two work orientations: strengthening political shaping and grassroots practice; Form a four-in-one training mode of "cooperation in training system, deepening political shaping, emphasizing practice in ability improvement, and good innovation in talent recommendation", build a hierarchical and classified training system, and select and train more than 20,000 students.

　　Yang Liwei, a space hero, Zhang Liming, a model of the times, and other pioneer models are all teaching instructors of Tianjin "Qingma Project". According to the political training system of "classroom teaching, learning by example and practical experience", a 240-hour curriculum system covering 7 units including the study and education of Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought of the Supreme Leader in the new era was built for the students. Qingma students went to Liangjiahe Village to feel their initial heart, went to Jinggangshan to explore the truth, solemnly swore in front of the Youth Cave, and deeply felt the truth power of China-era Marxism in the blending of theory and practice.

　　The key is to use people to "light a lamp and illuminate a large area"

　　Huang Xu, a national model worker who is known as "a leading soldier with electricity", is a star student of the first phase of "Qingma Project" of State Grid Tianjin Electric Power, which also responds to an original intention of talent training of "Qingma Project" — — Select and train the advanced elements among young people.

　　In the past two years, Ma Shigan, a national model of youth positions and a young horse student in the second phase of State Grid Tianjin Electric Power, has been the backbone of the construction of two smart energy towns in Tianjin. At first, the construction of smart energy towns and supporting projects was still blank in China. Ma Shigan recalled that it was the post practice exercise during the training of Qingma that made him master the basic skills of investigation and research and improved the scientific and effective research.

　　Ma Shigan organized members of the youth research team to analyze the contents and technical standards of many smart cities abroad item by item, exchanged the latest progress with scientific research institutes and universities, and visited many users on the spot, and finally formed a plan for the construction of smart energy towns in Tianjin. Yu Yixin, an academician of China Academy of Engineering, praised youth innovation: "The innovation breakthrough of smart energy towns is promoted nationwide ‘ Double carbon ’ The goal laid the foundation. "

　　As the first pilot unit of "Qingma Project" in Tianjin, in recent years, State Grid Tianjin Electric Power has trained a large number of young political backbones armed with China-era Marxism, and now they have become pioneers in key tasks such as ensuring power supply in cities and helping rural revitalization.

　　At present, the city-level shifts of the "Green Horse Project" in Tianjin have covered universities, rural areas, state-owned enterprises, social organizations and young pioneers. All 16 districts and 55 colleges and universities in the city have set up "Youth Project" training courses, and promoted all districts to incorporate outstanding new civil servants into the youth training system. The state-owned assets system has incorporated the "Green Horse Project" into the talent pool of enterprise management, and 22 grass-roots units of State Grid Tianjin Electric Power have also spontaneously launched various forms of "Green Horse" classes. All kinds of young horse students at all levels are trying to shine their own light, "lighting a lamp and illuminating a large area".

　　"After political training and grassroots practice, the key is to use it." Liu Xiangfeng said, "We also continue to strengthen the recommendation of young Malaysian students through policy support, follow-up training and other means, and continue to gather young talents for the development of the party’s cause."

　　The arrival of young people brings a breeze to grass-roots work, and they also worship the masses as teachers and draw more strength from the grass-roots front line.

　　These days, Fan Sichao’s "secretary-assisted agricultural live broadcast room", which has been prepared for a long time, will be unveiled. He took the returning college students with him and planned to invite more village secretaries to speak for the agricultural products in the village.

　　Hao Yuxiao often goes to the old people’s homes in the village. A veteran who has been a party member for more than 50 years told the young man who was determined to make a career in the countryside about his experience of taking everyone to repair the river in the village. He said: "If you want to dig down in the cold winter, you must take the initiative to attack. If the Communist party member does not take the lead, who will take the lead!"

　　Zhongqingbao Zhongqingwang reporter Hu Chunyan Source: China Youth Daily