Digital life | Mac with Apple M4 chip: ready for AI, but…

The Macs arrive a little late to the party, but they don’t miss their entrance. In any case, almost not. Because Quebec French is still missing from Apple Intelligence applications, for them to really establish themselves in the generative AI market. At least they are ready…

Seen from Quebec, Apple seems to be doing things the opposite of Microsoft, which was so eager to launch Copilot for Windows that PCs certified as being optimized for its new generative AI application only arrived a few months later. On Mac, Apple Intelligence activates after joining a waitlist, in English only. You will have to wait until Christmas to be able to use all its functions, and until next spring to use them in French.

But AI-ready Macs are already here. Already, the MacBook Air with M3 chip launched last spring was presented as the first of its kind. Three M4 chip Macs on sale this week complete the picture: the Mac mini, the iMac and the MacBook Pro.

A “turned on” Mac mini

The M4 chip already powered the iPad Pro. It is today under the (very small) hood of the entry-level Mac mini, sold from $799. That makes it perhaps the most affordable “AI PC” on the market. More, perhaps, than an iMac, since you can pair a Mac mini with the monitor larger than the 24 inches of the new iMac and still pay less. In any case, the Mac mini goes where Intel’s NUCs could have gone if we had not launched the plogue on this project in the summer of 2023.

Already, the design of the Mac mini is attracting ridicule – despite the addition of two USB-C ports on the front. Its power button is housed under the case, in the rear-left corner. Its detractors laugh: why did you have this Mac designed by the person who installed the Magic Mouse charging port under the device, making the mouse unusable while it is charging? Apple says: just don’t turn off your Mac. If at least we could turn it on from the keyboard!

At least we can say that the Mac mini is… on. Its M4 chip is sufficient to animate locally installed extended language models (LLM) without breaking a sweat and without activating its fan. Its M4 Pro chip version makes their job a lot easier: using Llama 3.2, we were able to generate acceptable summaries of long and complex texts in a fraction of a second, all in offline mode.

The catch: the Mac mini M4 Pro costs at least $1,899. It can be equipped up to a retail price of $4000. At that point, it’s too expensive. The entry-level model is sufficient for most uses.

A MacBook Pro that is both matte and glossy

There are Apple customers just like there are Mercedes-Benz customers: without looking, they opt for the most powerful model. In 2024, it’s a big waste. In both cases, but increasingly for MacBooks. The MacBook Air is powerful enough for the needs of a large majority of buyers who have always preferred the MacBook Pro.

This fall, even more so. Because the most attractive MacBook Pro costs… between $3,249 and $4,349. Double the size of a good MacBook Air. At this price, we have a MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro or M4 Max chip, in a case that we won’t have to open often. At least its repairability is improving. But with 48 GB of unified memory (out of a possible maximum of 128 GB), Thunderbolt 5 ports with ultra-fast speed (less than a minute to transfer 400 megabytes of data!), and more than 20 hours of autonomy (Apple in promises 22), we have more than satisfactory performance for years… even if a possible M4 Ultra chip risks doing even better.

Ironically, the most refreshing new feature this fall is an optional matte coating that eliminates glare and makes photo or video editing more enjoyable, even outdoors.

Besides its stratospheric price, there’s everything to love about the MacBook Pro, including its surprisingly powerful sound system. The 14-inch model is suitable for all kinds of computer work, but in the 16-inch format, you get a Mac, a television (or three, since you can directly add two external monitors), a stereo, an audiovisual studio , a mobile office, and now… a big lab for the generative AI of your choice.

And all this, while waiting for the French integration of Apple Intelligence.