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Does the world need a faster MacBook?

by George Lovell | | 0 comments

Apple recently announced the M3 chip series. A top-spec M3 MacBook Pro with M3 Max boasts 92 billion transistors, a 16-core CPU, a 40-core GPU, and 128GB Unified Memory (RAM that's built into the CPU).

Impressive. Powerful.

Granted, the average person doesn't know let alone care how many transistors, cores or gigabytes their device has. They care about how it performs overall - that it runs all their programs smoothly.


Very few people will dig into the specs and benchmark tests. Even fewer will truly understand them beyond: this year's numbers greater than last year's numbers.

"Scary Fast", as it was named in their Halloween launch event, is a lot more appealing and relatable to the average Joe.

All you need to know is that one of these devices should be able to handle just about any task that you throw at it.

Mac has never really been a viable option for gamers when shopping for a PC. Apple has recently (finally) become interested in gaming - as they should, given that the video game sector is larger than the movie and music industry combined, and is projected to be worth $321 billion by 2026.

It's hard to envision an M3 Mac experiencing any difficulty running a complex, demanding game. It's equally hard to envision the PC gaming community fully embracing Apple. In either case, we'll have to wait and see.

It's becoming increasingly less important to take specs into account when purchasing a new device. The vast majority of users needn't split hairs between different types of processors, assuming they are opting for a high-end £600+ device over a mid-range alternative. Just as the vast majority of drivers aren't concerned with how a vehicle's gear ratio or aerodynamics will influence its top speed. Any half-decent phone or computer will run Netflix and Snapchat without getting out of first gear.

Why would you ever need anything which performs above and beyond your requirements? The most efficient product in any given situation is the one that precisely meets but does not exceed your current requirements. You needn't second guess what you currently have unless it's hindering your productivity or enjoyment.

So is there any point? Well, having a fast car is cool, even if you never take it over 90mph. It's better to have more power than you need, and it is there in case you need it. It represents progress, which is what we all strive for in living a fulfilling life as individuals and making the world a better place collectively. Being part of this feels good.

The M3 isn't much of a step up from the M2, because you simply cannot make that much progress from year to year. It'd be quite difficult to justify upgrading from an M1 to an M3. If you're currently using an old Intel Mac however, then this would be a significant enough upgrade, and you wouldn't have to worry about upgrading again for several years. Law of contrast: a big upgrade is always more exciting and satisfying than a small, incremental one.

Some people will mock or criticize a company for headlining its new product's slightly darker shade of paint, proclaiming it to as an insufficient or sneaky trick to increase sales at higher prices. In actuality, there usually are some real and meaningful improvements to the product itself. The millions of dollars spent by a huge team of marketing experts determined that consumers would have a more favourable response to a darker shade of paint than to actual performance upgrades. People really care that it looks good, and paint isn't subject to scientific or economic constraints, so why not pull on that disproportionately long lever as much as possible?


Every ad that you see has been ruthlessly split-tested and refined to induce an optimum combination of desire, craving, jealousy, insecurity and anxiety in the largest proportion of consumers possible. It's just effective marketing.

Technology can be pretty difficult to explain or comprehend. "Our best camera yet" and "our fastest chip ever" are pretty clear-cut. The people who want to geek out (or argue) over computer specs will have no trouble finding them in their online geek communities.

Sharron on the other hand, just needs to think that the new MacBook will make her more productive and popular. If you can afford a £1700 MacBook Pro M3 to watch YouTube and play solitaire on, then have at it. I think most of us would rather cruise the middle lane at 60 in a Lambo than a Fiesta. The difference here is that an M3 Mac will be common and affordable in a decade. That's the beauty of tech.

Literally any device or piece of technology that you use today was, at some point and perhaps not too long ago, highly sought after and indeed considered cutting-edge.

These tools enable more artists and professionals to create more and better music, movies, art, and other content that you enjoy. Technology is the driving force behind advances in engineering, manufacturing, healthcare, and just about every major industry. And it only truly thrives in a competitive market. Even if you stay far from the cutting-edge; whether it excites you or not, its benefits will trickle down to you in time.

You might not need a faster Mac, but the fact that it exists will certainly benefit you.

Thanks for reading!

See Our Blog for the latest industry news, tech tips, company updates, and anything else we feel like writing about. 

     

Stop worrying about AI

by George Lovell | | 0 comments

People are scared about the future of AI and super-advanced technology.

A recent poll reported that 42% of respondents fear that AI will replace their job, and that 47% of people felt extremely nervous that AI would progressively destroy the human world and that there are very significant risks associated with using AI. 24% of them expressed an angry sentiment against AI and its applications.

That's a lot of fear and negativity. We don't like that, so we've put together a case for why you probably shouldn't worry too much about future technologies.

"The robots are stealing our jobs!" - People, since 1920. Many large companies have announced plans to discard thousands of employees in coming years. People are losing their jobs to tech, but that same tech is simultaneously creating new job roles at an equal or greater rate. This is nothing new: 60% of current jobs did not exist in 1940. Historically, technology has always been additive. When the Polaroid camera was invented, artists panicked that no one would buy their paintings anymore, but have you seen the price of a da Vinci portrait? Humans provide value in a way that technology cannot. We have and always will find ways to co-exist with technology.



AI has been used to create deep fakes, internet trolls and scams. AI has also been used to track down and convict paedophiles and to diagnose early-stage cancers. On balance, It's surely been a net positive for humanity so far. Could the balance shift? Yes. But why assume that it will? We are (mostly) aware of the negative consequences of technology that we use today, but would you ditch your iPhone entirely to negate them? Didn't think so.

There's a good chance that the world will be a very different place by the end of the decade, or the next decade; or certainly at some point before 2050. This can be a startling realisation, but take solace in the fact that the present day is and always has been the best day to be alive. Lifespan, poverty, crime, freedom and peace have all been trending in the right direction since records began. Yes, we have blips - but by all accounts, and measured over a sufficient period of time, things keep getting better. Humans - our team - have applied their intelligence across various domains: science, engineering, art, philosophy etc., and this has transformed us from sick and scrawny tribes of subsistence farmers living out of mud huts to the rich and glorious cities we live in today, all in a matter of 4000 years. We're not going to suddenly start regressing. Technology is a multiplier on that same intelligence which took us from mud huts to skyscrapers; so if anything, technology should facilitate a much faster rate of progress.



There have always been doomsayers. How many times have they been proven right? Famine, drought, poverty and conflict are always just around the corner, but rarely does it materialise in such dramatic and disastrous fashion. Sensational claims quickly dissipate and are forgotten - that is until the next trendy prophecy emerges. Our negativity bias makes it such that stories of doom and gloom are more attractive to our primitive little brains. The media, through both human journalists and computer algorithms, capitalises on our insatiable appetite for catastrophe and conspiracy by driving such stories to the top of our feeds. A broken clock might be right twice per day, but 99 times out of 100, the simple, rational, boring narrative triumphs.

The future of tech is anyone's best guess.

Experts always disagree, and they are just as subject to bias as the rest of us. Remember that most experts have dedicated tens of thousands of hours to studying their specific field, yet they often arrive at vastly different conclusions. Take minimum wage for example: as you sift through news sources and blog posts you'll find overwhelming evidence in the form of scientific studies and expert consensus that proves beyond reasonable doubt that raising the minimum wage will result in job loss and economic damage. But dig a little deeper, and you will also find overwhelming evidence in the form of scientific studies and expert consensus that proves beyond reasonable doubt that raising the minimum wage will result in decreased unemployment and economic growth. This is outlined brilliantly in section II of my favourite blog post on the internet.



So whose opinion do you trust? You don't. Even the most evidence-based theories as presented by the world's leading experts can be refuted with equally "strong" evidence by opposing experts. This is before the raw data has been cherry-picked, misconstrued, manipulated to fit a pre-existing belief or agenda, and neatly packaged in a dumbed-down yet compelling format which makes you feel like an expert with less than 2 minutes of work. If economists can get it so wrong in a field that's existed for 250 years, then you probably shouldn't put all of your trust in one single expert working in an infinitely complex field that's almost unrecognisable from one year to the next. Anyone who stands by their conviction with absolute certainty should be avoided.

Take any 19th or 20th-century genius - they were wrong about most things we know to be true today. Consider this: It is 100% impossible to create a list of things that haven't occurred to you, yet that list would be 100x longer than any other list that you could make right now. That's true for every single person, all the time, including experts. We don't know what we don't know, and we never will.

Making predictions is more difficult than we like to imagine. How often is the weather forecast bang-on? How much money have you made from betting on football games? Sometimes we get lucky, but time and time again, we fail to make accurate short-term predictions despite having an abundance of data. To expect any one person to accurately predict the trajectory of a super-advanced technology and its social and economic implications over a 10-year span is quite unreasonable. You can go back and find some pretty laughable predictions made by world-leading experts such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Elon Musk. This prediction gap will only increase as technology becomes more advanced because it becomes increasingly difficult (impossible) for any one person to understand it. So you may as well resign to the fact that even the experts - who know far more than you - will be mostly wrong in their predictions.

You don't know how it works. At best, you have an extremely vague understanding of advanced technologies and their implications, which you've cobbled together based on your favourite writing from those with a slightly less vague understanding. Dedicate every waking moment of your life to understanding something like AI and you'll still be way behind the curve. If it interests you, that's great, but don't treat any one opinion as gospel. Remain open to opposing viewpoints and possibilities.



Stoicism teaches us that we have power over our own minds - our opinions, judgements and attitudes - but not over outside events. Understanding and accepting exactly what is under our power is the key to leading a happy life. As Epictetus said, “The more you seek to control external events, the less control you will have over your own life.” A very tiny subset of the population has any meaningful control over how AI and other technologies will impact humanity. You have none. Any time and energy spent worrying about technology is sure to be wasteful and unproductive.

Fire is a really useful tool. It can also burn a city to the ground. That's why we have a fire service, firemen, fire extinguishers, fire doors, fire alarms and fire drills. We invented these things so that we could safely and effectively utilise fire without getting burned. Assuming we put the correct fire-door-equivalents in place for technology, we should be able to mitigate its potential dangers.

We don't see fire itself as good or evil, but whether it is utilised for good or evil can be entirely ascribed to human intent. Unfortunately, there will always be evil humans. Like tech, fire is neutral. How human utilise it will ultimately determine our fate. So perhaps it's not the tech that we should be afraid of, but the humans wielding it.



"The computer is a bicycle for our minds" is one of my favourite Steve Jobs quotes. Perhaps AI and other cutting-edge technologies are more akin to a rocket ship for our minds. We're travelling at greater speeds than ever before, which is kind of scary. Human ingenuity has got us this far without blowing up, so whilst we shouldn't be complacent, there's little evidence that we won't figure out what we need to as we go. We make mistakes, and we often look back, both at ourselves and society, and wonder how the hell we got it so wrong. Like watching a toddler learning to paint: it's a messy, sometimes painful, but altogether essential learning process. Generally, we humanoids figure it out, course correct, and come out ahead.

It'd be foolish to completely disregard the potential negative consequences of AI and other technologies, and we should all prepare accordingly with the information and intuitions that we do have. There's no doubt that it will bring challenges and opportunities, and that it will impact everyone differently. We must also recognise that on an individual level we have effectively zero control or predictive power over how it will pan out, so to worry about it is futile and only creates unnecessary stress. Instead, take a moment to appreciate that it's a wonderful and exciting time to be alive. You might just feel a little calmer as the robots incinerate your home.


Thanks for reading!

See Our Blog for the latest industry news, tech tips, company updates, and anything else we feel like writing about. 

     

Cold out there mind init?

by George Lovell | | 0 comments

Small talkin' 'bout the weather is as British as tea and crumpets.

Not everyone watched the rugby. Not everyone got stuck in traffic this morning. But rest assured that we are all experiencing the exact same weather conditions simultaneously. It's quick, easy and relatable. It's not controversial or debatable - provided it doesn't spark a discussion on climate change.

One survey found that Brits speak about the weather three times per day for a total of 9-10 minutes, which adds up to four and a half months across a lifetime.

That's a lot of weather talk. Sure beats Covid talk though.



Why bother?

Polite conversation on trivial matters simply allows the speaker to convey friendly intentions and a desire to engage in a positive interaction. We can signal and gauge each other's current moods without speaking it explicitly. Such conversational foreplay lays the foundation for deeper, more important topics of discussion. Sometimes it just fills an awkward silence, which can feel like social rejection, which can induce a state of mild panic.

You might get a bit fed up with having the same damn chat over and over today, so just remember that it serves a purpose and that we're all freezing our asses off in the same boat because we can't afford to turn the heating on - there's a hot-n-spicy conversational stepping stone for ya.

Thanks for reading!

See Our Blog for the latest industry news, tech tips, company updates, and anything else we feel like writing about. 

     

The story behind your Boneless Banquet

by George Lovell | | 0 comments

In order to build something great, you have to start at a young age.

The story of Colonel Sanders (KFC guy) says otherwise. It's a remarkable story, and we thought it was worth writing about.


At age 16, Sanders faked his age to enlist in the United States Army. After being honourably discharged a year later, he was hired as a labourer on the railway, where he was soon fired for fighting with a coworker. He then studied law, but his legal career was cut short after getting into a fight with a client. Sanders was forced to move back in with his mom and get a job selling life insurance, which he got also got fired from for insubordination.

Sanders launched his first startup at the age of 30 – a ferry boat service over the Ohio River. Unfortunately, a bridge was built nearby, which made this service redundant. He then started an oil lamp business, but this ultimately failed when electricity arrived in rural America.

In 1927, Sanders took charge of a gas station in Kentucky, but the economic slump that was the Great Depression forced the business to close in 1930. Despite this, he opened a second service station later that year, where he started selling his homemade chicken to truck drivers for a bit of extra cash.

The service station grew to become Sanders Court and Café. At age 49, he bought a motel but was forced to sell it at the start of World War II. Things were looking pretty bleak. Then, in 1939, his service station burned down to the ground.

Sanders rebuilt the restaurant, bigger and better than before. Then, in 1956, just as the service station was building traction, a new highway which bypassed it was commissioned. Sanders sold the building.

With nothing but a $105 monthly social security cheque to his name, Sanders made one last-ditch attempt at success. He was 62 when he opened another service station, which soon became known as Kentucky Fried Chicken. Sanders had been trying to franchise his restaurant for some time. His recipe had been rejected 1009 times before anyone accepted it. In 1956, Sanders travelled the country to sell his secret spice blend and patented pressure cooking technique. Sanders taught kitchen staff his methods, and restaurants paid him 5 cents for every bird they sold.

By 1963 – and at the age of 66 – Sanders had 600 locations, including overseas franchises in Canada, Mexico and the UK. In 1964 he sold the business to investors for $2 million ($20 million in today's money). The company went public 2 years later, and by 1970, KFC had 3,000 restaurants across 48 countries.



Today, there are around 25,000 KFC outlets in 147 countries around the world.

Decades of persistence, determination and resilience in the face of adversity left Colonel Sanders with an astounding legacy, especially given that he made his fortune in his mid-70s. No spring chicken, but not too old to chase his dreams and achieve ultra success.

The odds may not be stacked in your favour today, but that doesn't mean you can't win. You just have to keep playing the game.

Thanks for reading!

See Our Blog for the latest industry news, tech tips, company updates, and anything else we feel like writing about. 

     

Made in India

by George Lovell | | 0 comments

The iPhone 15 is being manufactured in India. China remains Apple's primary manufacturing hub, and whilst they have been manufacturing iPhones in India since 2017, Apple have significantly ramped up production this year.
Apple's goal is to diversify their global production, which primarily resides in and relies heavily on China. Apple's China-based factories were faced with supply chain disruption and production challenges from 2020 to 2022 which ultimately led to product shortages and delays.

This, coupled with increasing diplomatic tensions between the U.S. and China has given tech manufacturers a huge incentive to diversify their production out of China. Microsoft recently shifted part of its manufacturing of the Xbox to India, and Amazon are now making Fire TV devices in Vietnam.

The move also saves on import tariffs, which are particularly high for electronics in India. The iPhone 14 cost 23% more in India than in the U.S.! India is a third-world country, but you'd expect of its population to have a smartphone in the near future. With their 1.4 billion people, India are about to overtake China to become the most populated nation. Therefore, it makes sense for manufacturers to take steps to meet anticipated demand, and to make their products more affordable in these countries.



It's spreading the risk: Being reliant on one country for your production is a very fragile system. You wouldn't want all your eggs in one basket would you?

It also exposes them to potential upside in an ever-changing world: Even if China is the the best place to manufacture today, who's to say India won't be the manufacturing powerhouse of the 2030's? We know that India have been on the rise in recent years, with experts suggesting that they could become the next great economic power.  Getting in early could be an advantage.

In January 2023,  5% to 7% of all iPhones were manufactured in India, and the company’s goal is to increase that to 25%. That's a lofty goal, but coming from the worlds biggest, most profitable company, it suggests that India has the potential to establish itself as a major player in tech manufacturing.



Like China, Apple's plant in India is run by Foxconn - so they know what they're doing, but goodness knows what's involved in re-creating an operation in a different country, with very different laws and culture.

Already, I've seen photos and videos highlighting quality control issues with new iPhones coming out of Indian factories: dust behind camera lens', chips and dents in the housing etc. Given that they're designed to go viral, it's impossible to say how legitimate the leaks are or how serious these issues could prove to be.

No doubt their will be some teething problems, which we may or may not hear about. India is rife with corruption, and millions live in extreme poverty. This could be problematic. But if there's one thing you can guarantee, it's Apple's incredible ability to consistently uphold their brand and deliver products that consumers desire.

I guess you'll have to buy an iPhone 15 and see for yourself.

Thanks for reading!

See Our Blog for the latest industry news, tech tips, company updates, and anything else we feel like writing about.