That’s got to mean the final design will focus on enhancements in the GPU and Neural engine, and likely also means additional cores for both. It could also be that Apple’s huge investments in 5G networking will make even more sense by the time these chips ship, as network performance in terms of data downloads and uploads will be of major significance when it comes to perceived performance of its own AI technologies.
Bringing the team together, as it were, could further widen Apple’s competitive moat, though the lack of 5G chips from Apple could complicate things. (They are expected in next year’s iPhone SE, but that remains to be seen.) The speculation about a connection between processor advances and new 5G radios could be off, but I feel that when it comes to edge AI, probably not by much.
All about AI?
It remains to be seen which faster Apple Intelligence services will support future product sales, of course, but what does seem true is that these new M5 chips will begin to rollout in Macs and iPads toward the end of next year. When they make their appearance, these will inevitably deliver performance increases similar to what we’ve seen so far with the M4 family of chips; they’ve already propelled all of Apple’s latest Macs to the top of the list.
