alt Hacker NewsIt's plausible but is the Apple Tax for a 1TB memory machine on top of current memory prices really worth it? I paid around $4000 for 4090m laptop with 16GB VRAM back in 2023, it's great but DoA for even quantized LLMs. I can run SLMs and fine tune it but that's it.
We need one of those specialized inference chip startups to succeed and a PC manufacturer willing to bet on them against Nvidia for the local AI to find mass market appeal.
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If you think the apple tax is high you should see the nvidia tax.
> I paid around $4000 for 4090m laptop
That's how much many developers currently spend on tokens - every day. Whatever "Apple Tax" applies to a device that can run a capable model offline will amortise itself in a blink.
"Apple tax" is such a lazy and inaccurate accusation to level. Sure we've had expensive wheels on the cheese grater (ie Mac Pro) but we've also had:
1. When Apple came out with the real Macbook Air in 2010/2011 (not the silly 2008 one), nobody could compete with it with those specs at that price and they couldn't for years. And every competitor usually sucked in some major way, most often the trackpad;
2. The Mac Mini is an outstanding piece of hardware for $600. Or was;
3. I've generally found that "Apple tax" complaints levelled against the iPhone to be nothing more than Android cope;
4. The M-series silicon has been an absolute game-changer. I honestly thought the first-generation M1s would be not great but they came out swinging. And the price points for these Macbooks have all been great, much better than the last-gasp-of-Johnny-Ive touch bar butterfly keyboard series, which were objectively awful.
I recently bought a Mac mini M4 16 GB - mostly to run Immich. I assumed I needed a Linux box. After a lot of researched I was quite surprised that the mac was the cheapest option. So not always an Apple tax.