Technology

Apple announces new and smaller Mac Mini with first redesign since 2010

Published

6 days ago

October 29, 2024

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Apple’s new Mac Mini is smaller than its predecessor.

Apple

Apple announced on Tuesday new Mac Mini models, featuring the first major redesign since 2010 that makes the desktop computer significantly smaller.

Aside from a redesign that shrunk the case and reduced the computer’s volume in half, the main upgrade on these new computers is that they include Apple’s latest chip, either the M4, or a more powerful version called the M4 Pro.

The Mac Mini is Apple’s least-expensive Mac, starting at $599, and does not include a display, which is sold separately. When the product line was first introduced in 2008, it was marketed as a computer for people switching from Microsoft Windows who could simply plug their existing keyboard, mouse and monitor into their new silver box.

The Mac Mini is not one of Apple’s highest-volume computers in terms of sales, but it is an important slot in Apple’s lineup, especially for people who make apps for iPhones and other Apple platforms. Many iPhone developers like to run a Mac Mini as a personal development server for coordinating uploads and code.

One improvement in the new design is that all of the ports are USB-C ports, the same more modern offering found on Apple’s laptops. There are three USB-C ports on the rear and two on the front, a new addition that will make it easier to plug or unplug accessories while the computer rests on a desk.

The ports on the back of the 2024 Mac Mini.

Apple

Apple said in a press release that the M4 is a significant improvement over the M2 chip in the previous version released in 2022. Graphics and games are more than twice as fast, and the M4 can support up to 14 CPU cores and 20 GPU cores, an increase over the past generation. Apple first introduced the M4 in May in Apple’s iPad Pro.

Apple is framing the new Mac Minis, like all of its new products announced this year, as built for Apple Intelligence, the company’s artificial intelligence system released this week. Apple has said a forthcoming integration of ChatGPT into writing fields inside apps such as Word will allow users to generate and rewrite text and emails using the system.

However, unlike on the iPhone, where only phones released in the past two years will support Apple Intelligence, all of Apple’s computers with the M1 chip and newer since 2020 can run the company’s AI.

Apple’s Mac family remains a large business segment even though it is less important to the company than the iPhone. In the June quarter, Apple reported $7 billion in Mac sales, up about 2% on an annual basis.

Apple’s chief marketer previously teased a “week of announcements.” The company unveiled new iMac computers on Monday, so it seems plausible more is coming. This week’s new Macs are likely Apple’s last major hardware announcements for the year.

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Technology

Barry Diller calls timing of The Washington Post’s non-endorsement a ‘blunder’

Published

3 hours ago

November 4, 2024

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Barry Diller calls timing of The Washington Post's non-endorsement a 'blunder'

Watch CNBC's full interview with IAC and Expedia chairman Barry Diller

To Barry Diller, a friend of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the decision for The Washington Post not to endorse a candidate in tomorrow’s presidential election was “absolutely principled” — and poorly timed, he said Monday on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

“They made a blunder — it should’ve happened months before, and it didn’t, and that’s the issue with it,” Diller said.

Diller is chairperson of both online travel company Expedia and IAC, which owns media platforms and websites like Dotdash Meredith and Care.com. He and Bezos appear to have been close friends for years, with Diller and his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, hosting Bezos’s engagement party to fiancee Lauren Sanchez.

The decision not to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 race or for future presidential races came directly from Bezos, the paper’s owner, according to an article published by two of the Post’s own reporters.

The move prompted public condemnation from several staff writers, a flood of at least 250,000 digital subscription cancellations and the resignations of at least three editorial board members.

Bezos defended his position in his own op-ed late last month, calling the move a “meaningful step in the right direction” to restore low public trust in media and journalism.

“Presidential endorsements do nothing to tip the scales of an election,” Bezos wrote, emphasizing that the decision to not endorse a candidate was made “entirely internally” and without consulting either campaign. “I wish we had made the change earlier than we did, in a moment further from the election and the emotions around it.”

Diller said he spoke to Bezos following the decision.

“I think it was absolutely principled,” Diller said. “The mistake they made — and it was a mistake admitted by him — was timing.”

Technology

AppLovin’s 300% surge in 2024 leaves ad-tech company with big expectations for earnings

Published

5 hours ago

November 4, 2024

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AppLovin's 300% surge in 2024 leaves ad-tech company with big expectations for earnings

While Nvidia’s spectacular surge remains the biggest story in the technology industry, the AI chipmaker’s performance on the market has been dwarfed this year by a digital advertising company with a specialty in gaming.

AppLovin has soared 310% in 2024, beating every U.S. tech company with a market cap of at least $5 billion, according to FactSet data. Nvidia, which has led the artificial intelligence boom and become the world’s second-most valuable public company, is up 173% this year.

Founded 12 years ago, AppLovin went public in 2021, riding a Covid-era wave of excitement in online games. Now, the company’s games unit generates relatively slow growth, but its online ad business is bustling from advancements in AI that have improved ad targeting.

Great returns bring great expectations, and AppLovin has a lot to prove in its earnings report on Wednesday, as investors look for proof that the rally is warranted. In its third-quarter report, analysts are expecting revenue growth of 31% to $1.13 billion, according to LSEG, following two straight quarters of growth above 40%.

More than revenue, AppLovin has shown a massive increase in profit. Based on LSEG’s consensus, EPS is expected to more than triple to 92 cents, while analysts see operating income more than doubling to $424.2 million, according to FactSet.

AppLovin attributes much of its growth to its AI advertising engine called AXON, particularly since releasing the updated 2.0 version last year. The technology helps put more targeted ads on the mobile gaming apps the company owns, and works for other studios that license the software.

“AXON enhancements through ongoing self-learning and our dedicated development efforts have fueled robust business performance this quarter,” AppLovin said in its second-quarter shareholder letter in August. Revenue in the software business jumped 75% in the second quarter to $711 million, accounting for about two-thirds of total sales.

Analysts have gotten increasingly bullish.

Wells Fargo initiated AppLovin with the equivalent of a buy rating on Oct. 29, calling the company a share gainer. Analysts at BTIG lifted their price target last week to $202, the highest among firms tracked by FactSet. Oppenheimer, Stifel Nicolaus and Jefferies also raised their targets in October.

According to analysts at Wedbush, the ad opportunity in the mobile gaming industry will grow from $10 billion today to $50 billion over the next decade.

“Investors have bought into the story, driving APP shares to all-time highs, and we think that the rally is warranted,” Wedbush analysts wrote in a note on Oct. 11. They said the company’s “real opportunity” is to catch the influx in brand advertising towards mobile gaming from more conventional channels like social media or legacy broadcasting.

Because of its position in digital advertising, AppLovin faces potential competition from some of the most well-capitalized companies on the planet. In its latest annual filing, AppLovin named Google, Amazon and Facebook as competitors. The company also relies on a small set of mobile platforms, most notably from Apple and Google, for distribution.

AppLovin didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Among the biggest financial beneficiaries of AppLovin’s historic rally is founder and CEO Adam Foroughi, whose stake has soared to about $5 billion in value.

Things could’ve turned out very differently.

In September 2016, several years before the IPO, Foroughi agreed to sell a majority stake in AppLovin to Chinese investment firm Orient Hontai Capital in a deal valued at $1.4 billion. The transaction never materialized as the agreement came at a time when the U.S. government was clamping down on Chinese involvement in the domestic tech sector.

More recently, AppLovin was supposed to be on the other side of a deal that ultimately got scuttled. In 2022, AppLovin gave up on efforts to buy gaming software developer Unity Software for $20 billion, after Unity shareholders rejected the bid.

Unity has since struggled mightily, losing more than half its value. Over that same stretch, AppLovin’s market cap has ballooned by almost sixfold.

WATCH: AppLovin is ‘killing Unity’ says LightShed’s Brandon Ross

Technology

SK Hynix rallies 6.5% after Nvidia boss Jensen Huang asks firm to expedite next-generation chip

Published

7 hours ago

November 4, 2024

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SK Hynix rallies 6.5% after Nvidia boss Jensen Huang asks firm to expedite next-generation chip

Chey Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, during the SK AI Summit in Seoul, South Korea, on Monday, Nov. 4, 2024. SK Hynix is working with Nvidia to resolve the supply bottleneck, Chey said.

Jean Chung | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Shares of SK Hynix rallied 6.5% on Monday after the business announced a next-generation memory chip and the parent company’s chair said that the South Korean semiconductor firm sped up the supply of a key product to Nvidia.

Speaking at the company’s event on Monday, Chey Tae-won, chair of SK Group, ran through an anecdote in which he said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang asked him if SK Hynix could move the supply of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips called HBM4 forward by six months. SK Hynix’s CEO at the time said it was possible to do so, according to Chey.

It’s unclear if this will shift SK Hynix’s production timeline from the previously-announced second-half of 2025.

High-bandwidth memory is a key component of Nvidia’s chips, which are in turn used to train huge artificial intelligence models. Tech giants around the world have been snapping up Nvidia chips in a bid to produce the most powerful models and applications.

SK Hynix is a key supplier to Nvidia, and the huge demand for the American company’s products has helped the South Korean firm to achieve rapid growth this year and record profits.

SK Hynix shares are up around 36% this year.

On Monday, the company also announced a new product that helped support its share price rally. Samples of the chip — a 16-layer HBM — will be provided to customers in early 2025, SK Hynix said.

HBM is a type of dynamic random access memory, known as DRAM, where chips are vertically stacked to save space and reduce power consumption. Adding more layers to a HBM will, in theory, give it more capacity to handle complex AI applications.

The aggressive roadmap from SK Hynix comes as its closest rival Samsung, which has fallen behind in HBM, tries to stage a comeback and get its most advanced chips certified for use by Nvidia.