Sept. 9, 2024 - “It’s Glowtime” Event

Speaking of the Stanford mall... [REDACTED]

Edited because I fell into the “politics” trap!

I hate that Stanford Apple store, btw. The light from the skylight makes me feel nauseous.
 
Oooops... I just deleted it - realizing that's politics.
 
Have you seen any reviews of the new AirPods comparing the audio quality? Also, do you know if you can listen without ANC and without transparency mode (same as existing AirPods, I mean). I am sure you can but since it was not explicitly mentioned...
 
It glows.

Well... it is luminous. :)

I think I might be feeling what Cmaier is talking about. For me it isn't nausea, but a feeling of uneasiness that I can't put my finger on.

Similarly... when Apple opened its new store in downtown Palo Alto around 12 years ago, I also felt uncomfortable. Not due to light, but to the overwhelming noise in the large space when it was full of people. A lot of that had to do with the walls, glass ceiling, and massive glass front randomly reflecting sound from people talking, in and out of phase. I'm guessing that made people talk louder, exacerbating the situation (positive feedback). Eventually Apple addressed the problem by putting trees and sound deadening material inside, which made a huge difference.

Perhaps that's what's happening at the Stanford mall store. Three sides of the building and the ceiling are massive sheets of glass, and no doubt great sound reflectors.
 
Ran into a bug this morning that any saved credit cards or Apple Pay were sending the incorrect expiry info to my bank. Called the bank - they confirmed all of the attempts had the same, incorrect info. Went to call Apple back, did one more try with putting in the credit card info, just for this order and it went through. Then I get a text sometime later that there's a problem with my payment and my order is on hold. Called Apple back....got the song and dance that it's my banks problem. Called the bank. Yes, they put a hold on the card because of all of the attempts (umm...why didn't you tell me that the last time I called when I was saying how it wasn't going through?!) - they took the hold off of the card, after the agent asked me about a dozen identity questions. (PITA!)
Went back online, had them retry the payment and it went through.

16 256GB Black and the 46mm Titanium Slate arriving next Friday. :)
 
Well... it is luminous. :)

I think I might be feeling what Cmaier is talking about. For me it isn't nausea, but a feeling of uneasiness that I can't put my finger on.

Similarly... when Apple opened its new store in downtown Palo Alto around 12 years ago, I also felt uncomfortable. Not due to light, but to the overwhelming noise in the large space when it was full of people. A lot of that had to do with the walls, glass ceiling, and massive glass front randomly reflecting sound from people talking, in and out of phase. I'm guessing that made people talk louder, exacerbating the situation (positive feedback). Eventually Apple addressed the problem by putting trees and sound deadening material inside, which made a huge difference.

Perhaps that's what's happening at the Stanford mall store. Three sides of the building and the ceiling are massive sheets of glass, and no doubt great sound reflectors.

yep! i have the same problem with the “new” University Ave store. I’ve been in a lot of Apple stores around the world - paris, rome, NY, etc. Only the two in Palo Alto make me feel so uncomfortable I hate to be there. It’s something about the pattern of light and shadows caused by the light streaming in from above, I think.
 
yep! i have the same problem with the “new” University Ave store. I’ve been in a lot of Apple stores around the world - paris, rome, NY, etc. Only the two in Palo Alto make me feel so uncomfortable I hate to be there. It’s something about the pattern of light and shadows caused by the light streaming in from above, I think.
I get an uncomfortable feeling in every Apple Store… but mostly because I get the unshakable urge to buy something.
 
I have my 16 Pro Max and case ordered. Should be cool. One thing I missed is Apple needs to go back to having a folio case offering - they had a folio case that was best of breed.
 
There used to be a correspondence between the A-series and M-series CPU cores:

A14 <=> M1 (both used Firestorm P-cores and Icestorm E-cores).
A15 <=> M2 (both used Avalanche P-cores and Blizzard E-cores).

But does that continue, such that:

A16 <=> M3?
A17 <=> M4?
A18 <=> M5??

or:

A16 <=> nothing
A17 <=> M3?
A18 <=> M4?

I ask because I've not found core names for the M3 or M4. And Ryan Smith also expressed uncertainty about this when the M3 was introduced, writing:

"The question is whether we’re looking at the CPU cores from the recently launched A17 SoC, or the CPU cores from the A16 (Everest and Sawtooth). The A17 is the more likely candidate, especially since Apple already has working IP for N3B. But strictly speaking, we don’t have enough information to rule out the A16 CPU cores at this time; especially as Apple is not offering any guidance on the architectural improvements that the M3 family’s CPU cores offer over the M2."

 
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A14 <=> M1 (both used Firestorm P-cores and Icestorm E-cores).
A15 <=> M2 (both used Avalanche P-cores and Blizzard E-cores).

But does that continue, such that:

A16 <=> M3?
A17 <=> M4?
A18 <=> M5??

or:

A16 <=> nothing
A17 <=> M3?
A18 <=> M4?

The way stuff works, you can mostly guess that cores are tied to a process. M2 was N5P, A16 on N4P, M3 and A17 both on N3B, M4 and A18 on N3E. M3/A17 are ARMv8.6, as opposed to M4/A18 which are v9.2 (not really that big a jump as 8.6 is basically the same as 9.1).

So, yeah, it looks like A16 is an orphan.
 
There used to be a correspondence between the A-series and M-series CPU cores:

A14 <=> M1 (both used Firestorm P-cores and Icestorm E-cores).
A15 <=> M2 (both used Avalanche P-cores and Blizzard E-cores).

But does that continue, such that:

A16 <=> M3?
A17 <=> M4?
A18 <=> M5??

or:

A16 <=> nothing
A17 <=> M3?
A18 <=> M4?

I ask because I've not found core names for the M3 or M4. And Ryan Smith also expressed uncertainty about this when the M3 was introduced, writing:

"The question is whether we’re looking at the CPU cores from the recently launched A17 SoC, or the CPU cores from the A16 (Everest and Sawtooth). The A17 is the more likely candidate, especially since Apple already has working IP for N3B. But strictly speaking, we don’t have enough information to rule out the A16 CPU cores at this time; especially as Apple is not offering any guidance on the architectural improvements that the M3 family’s CPU cores offer over the M2."

It’s the latter. A16 corresponds to nothing in the M-series. Though weirdly the internal alphanumeric code name for the M3-series SOC starts with H15 (as in A16) rather than 16 (as in A17 Pro), the cores are clearly the same as A17 Pro and manufactured on the same node - both M3 and A17 Pro P-core share features like a wider decode/better branch prediction than the A16 core and overall have similar performance characteristics albeit at different clocks.

The opposite would require Apple to port the CPU architecture from N5-node family to the N3-node family for no reason while the A17 Pro GPU and M3 GPU are shared. At the time of release, some people believed this to be the case, but for reasons that I thought lacking in self-consistency never mind evidentiary support.

The way stuff works, you can mostly guess that cores are tied to a process. M2 was N5P, A16 on N4P, M3 and A17 both on N3B, M4 and A18 on N3E. M3/A17 are ARMv8.6, as opposed to M4/A18 which are v9.2 (not really that big a jump as 8.6 is basically the same as 9.1).

So, yeah, it looks like A16 is an orphan.

Yup - although the whole exact ARM version is a bit ... unclear as to what exactly counts as what.
 
the whole exact ARM version is a bit ... unclear
I would assume that stating Ax or Mx is ARMv# is a user-side compatibilty claim: code built for 8.6 will run on the M3, but if you want to run code compiled for 9.1, you need M4. There is very little difference – perhaps a handful of arcane ops, plus SVE2/SME – because a large fraction of 9.n is on the system side, and of course, Apple has some unpublished capabilities.
 
I would assume that stating Ax or Mx is ARMv# is a user-side compatibilty claim: code built for 8.6 will run on the M3, but if you want to run code compiled for 9.1, you need M4. There is very little difference – perhaps a handful of arcane ops, plus SVE2/SME – because a large fraction of 9.n is on the system side, and of course, Apple has some unpublished capabilities.
@leman had a detailed discussion with a bunch of people about this I think at the other place and I honestly can't remember what they concluded about whether M4 counts as Arm v9 (I think it does?) - I only remember that the definitions of 8 vs 9 was a lot murkier than I, or anyone in that conversation, had realized before the conversation started - eg a lot of stuff we assumed as required like SVE was actually optional, the actual differentiation was something else, it was a lot different than what I had expected it to be. @leman would probably remember better than me as he really dug into it.
 
Got my 16 Pro Max. One thing immediately apparent is this thing is ridiculously efficient on power - I was out of state and used it in a rural setting with spotty access (which usually sucks the battery dry) for 18 hours. End result, charge down to 90%. Also the Camera Shutter is a great improvement. I am still getting into iOS 18.

Now Apple.....GIVE ME BACK THE FOLIO CASE!!!!!
 
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