Apple launched its long-awaited MacBook Air M3 yesterday (04) through a press release. The message attracted attention due to an excerpt in which the company claims that the new model, equipped with the M3 processor, is “the best consumer laptop in the world for AI”.
The statement may seem bold, but it's important to remember that Apple made this statement before the 2024 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). The event is scheduled to take place in June, and everything indicates that Apple will announce a series of new features of artificial intelligence (AI) at the time.
Apple explained statement about the M3 Macbook Air
Image: Disclosure / Apple
The statement issued by Apple highlighted the power of the M3 processor and how the new technology enables even more advanced use of AI features.
“Every Mac is a great platform for AI. The M3 includes a faster, more efficient 16-core Neural Engine, along with accelerators on the CPU and GPU to power on-device machine learning, making MacBook Air the best consumer laptop of the world to AI.”
The company also mentioned some of the different features that users of the new MacBook Air will have access to. Although Apple seemed to be a little behind other brands in terms of AI, the new computer model seems to “catch up” by bringing many features that are already available on the market.
“To harness this incredible AI performance, macOS offers intelligent features that increase productivity and creativity, so users can enable advanced camera features, real-time speech-to-text, translation, text predictions, visual understanding , accessibility features, and more. With a broad ecosystem of apps offering advanced AI capabilities, users can do everything from check their homework with AI-powered math assistance in Goodnotes 6 to automatically enhance photos in Pixelmator Pro, or remove background noise from a video using CapCut.”
Despite mentioning applications that already have AI functionalities, the technology-related features of the M3 MacBook Air will not be limited to them alone. In the statement, Apple also emphasized that the new computer will feature AI models, including large language models (LLMs).
“Combined with Apple's unified memory architecture, MacBook Air can also run optimized AI models, including large language models (LLMs) and diffusion models for local imaging with great performance.”
In addition to indicating that Apple will bring its own text and image generative AI tools, the statement also mentions that other AI applications could be used on the new MacBook Air.
“In addition to on-device performance, MacBook Air supports cloud-based solutions, allowing users to run powerful productivity and creativity apps that harness the power of AI, like Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, Canva, and Adobe Firefly .”
Apple promises it will “break new ground” in generative AI this year
This was not Apple's first public statement regarding its work with AI. During Apple's Q1 earnings call last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that “later this year” we will have news on this.
A few weeks later, during Apple's shareholder meeting, Cook highlighted that Apple will “break new ground” in generative AI this year. These teases raise anticipation for WWDC 2024.