Apple's hardware advantage is something I'm hoping to see really unleashed with the M3 generation. The fact the A17 Pro has ray tracing support is giving me hope they can catch up with the incumbents quickly. It's honestly the one thing that has kept me away from their newer hardware-- I primarily use my computer at a desk and PC hardware (GPU primarily) is leagues ahead of what their very best can do. I honestly can't justify spending nearly 4k when Linux works great for everything I do professionally AND when I'm done with work I can still play a game.
I disagree. ML is eating the world by storm and one thing Apple loves is high margins. Folks like myself would gladly pay that margin to someone besides Nvidia. I paid $2k for my last GPU and was happy to do it. That doesn’t even factor the fact that businesses would pay even more when the alternative are machines that start in the tens of thousands for just the GPU ability. GPUs right now are carrying fat margins and that makes more than enough incentive for Apple IMHO.
You can find many leaked email threads from Apple where they talk about the value of high powered local compute. It is a fundamental part of their strategy. They do not want the cloud approach for high end compute like Google, they want you to have high end and powerful devices in your hands.
