Apple is ready for AI

I have been critical of Apple, and more specifically its designs with the M-series processors. My complaint is that the processors are too powerful, that even the simplest M1 processor is more than capable of handling tasks of an average user. (That is, someone who browses the web, reads and sends e-mail, and pays bills.)

The arrival of "AI" has changed my opinion. The engines that we call "artificial intelligence" require a great deal of processing, memory, and storage, which is just what the M-series processors have. Apple is ready to deploy AI on its next round of computers, powered by M4 processors. Those processors, merely speculative today, will most likely arrive in 2025 with companion hardware and software that includes AI-driven features.

Apple is well positioned for this. Their philosophy is to run everything locally. Applications run on the Mac, not in the cloud. Apps run on iPhones and iPads, not in the cloud. Apple can sell the benefits of AI combined with the benefits of privacy, as nothing travels across the internet.

This is different from the Windows world, which has seen applications and apps rely on resources in the cloud. Microsoft Office has been morphing, slowly into cloud-based applications. (There is a version one can install on a local PC, but I suspect that parts of that use cloud-based resources.)

I'm not sure how Microsoft and other application vendors will respond. Will they shift back to local processing? (Such a move would require a significant increase in processing power on the PC.) Will they continue to move to the cloud? (That will probably require additional security, and marketing, to convince users that their data is safe.)

Microsoft's response may be driven by the marketing offered by Apple. If Apple stresses privacy, Microsoft will (probably) counter with security for cloud-based applications. If Apple stresses performance, Microsoft may counter with cloud-based data centers and distributed processing.

In any case, it will be interesting to see the strategies that both companies use.