Microsoft’s second quarter results beat analysts’ expectations. as revenue increased by 16% to $ 65.6 billion — higher than the $64.5 billion analysts had expected. Net income rose 11% to $ 24.67 billion.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a comment that the company’s AI business will soon be worth $ 10 billion a year, making it the fastest product category to reach that milestone, Axios reports.
Revenue from server products and cloud services increased by 23%, with revenue from the Microsoft 365 commercial products and cloud services up by 13% for the quarter.
As the pandemic eased in 2022 and 2023, US core business centers in large and small cities continued to suffer the after effects or remote- and hybrid-work policies, which led to a 20% to 40% reduction in office space use and a devaluation of properties. The big switch to remote work left many downtowns largely empty for months.
Since then, commercial areas have seen a slow but steady return to the office, with average office occupancy rate hitting more than 60%.
Still, many offices remain partially or completely empty.
“We are approaching 20 quarters of contraction in the office market,” according to Peter Miscovich, global future of work leader at Jones Lang LaSalle IP (JLL), a commercial real estate and investment management services firm. “There are signs of stabilization of vacancies in certain parts of the country.”
According to one recent survey, most companies are pushing for RTO mandates in 2025. The survey by ResumeBuilder found that nine in 10 companies will enact RTO mandates based on data from 764 companies that transitioned to a fully remote work model during the pandemic. But the data is nuanced. Not all RTO policies, of course, require employees to be in the office five days a week.
Kastle
“There’s only 25% of companies, overall, seeking RTO five days per week, and the remaining 75% are involved in various forms of hybrid or hybrid/remote and my forecast is that hybrid will endure,” Miscovich said.
The ResumeBuilder survey results were similar to Miscovich’s findings. The majority of companies are operating with a hybrid model, while 30% require employees to be in the office full-time.
Office occupancy rates fell from 100% in February 2020, at the start of the pandemic’s stay-at-home orders, to just 14% by April of that same year. Over the next four years, those rates have slowly climbed as companies embraced hybrid work policies. But on average, occupancy never fully returned to 100%, according to Kastle Systems, a provider of security key fob technology for 2,600 buildings in 138 US cities.
Recent data shows occupancy rates are again climbing. In January, the peak occupancy rate of US office buildings stood around 46% based on a 10-city average, according to Kastle. Today, more than 61% of buildings are occupied in those same 10 large cities. And cities such as Austin and Houston are seeing occupancy rates as high as 77% to 71%, respectively. Chicago’s office building occupancy rate stands at 69%.
Peak occupancy rates are only half the story. “Peak” relates to days when offices are most full, such as on Mondays and Tuesdays. On less popular days, such as Fridays, office occupancy rates dipped as low as 33% this month.
Kastle
Despite the rise in occupancy rates, office values remain depressed compared to before the pandemic, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). It found there has been a 39% decline in office building values since 2020 — and a large percentage of pre-pandemic leases will come up for renewal in the next few years. That could force some companies to more closely evaluate their office needs.
The COVID pandemic served as something of an unintentional experiment that revealed a host of uncomfortable workplace truths — namely, that most employees always preferred remote work and at-home knowledge workers were just as, if not more, productive. Another realization: working in the office, by default, isn’t as rewarding some people as it is for others, according to Phil Kirschner, an associate partner in McKinsey & Co.’s real estate and people and organizational performance practices.
Not everyone, for example, feels the same level of inclusion and equality in an office setting. “Diverse populations of almost any measure — whether skin color, sexual orientation, physical disability — are affected by in-office requirements, and there’s a higher desire for workplace flexibility either when taking a job or the likelihood to leave a job if you’re not offered it,” Kirschner said in an earlier interview with Computerworld.
Higher quality buildings, such as those that are newer and have more amenities, have fared better of late. That’s prompted a rush to build or renovate older offices that not only have newer amenities and mixed-use spaces (such as combined office, shopping and recreational facilities) but updated technology to better support remote and hybrid workers.
But older properties with fewer amenities could suffer. In particular, Class B, Class C and even lower-end Class A grade buildings could see the biggest valuation declines in the current market; those who are leasing or buying space now want top-notch AAA buildings — those with the latest amenities, technologies, and locations.
“There’s a potential space shortage in certain districts and locations,” Miscovich said. “Even three-days a week in the office is affecting demand. We are seeing demand for that high-quality space, but there’s also the surplus of the obsolete, class B- or C buildings that are not serving the workforce of the future.”
Leading the return-to-office trend are legal firms, financial services organizations, defense contractors, and industrial companies seeking to expand their footprint as the result of business demands.
“And, then the technology sector is picking up in places where they have AI talent demands and key urban centers for tech talent,” Miscovich said. “Technology is fascinating because you have some firms becoming more office centric and others are still offering more of a hybrid approach. We’ll see how that sector plays out over the next couple of years.”
Miscovich describes the pandemic was “an accelerant” and “time machine” that moved the US workforce 10 years into the future in just two years. Remote work was inevitable with the evolution of the digital economy, and the pandemic showed the promise of hybrid and distributed work.
Now workplace design, leadership, culture, workplace practices, change management, hybrid workplace technologies — all need to mature as we go forward beyond the post pandemic world, he said.
“The future of work will be distributed; it will be diverse and it will be dynamic. I think the RTO mandates occurring are for individual companies in that 25% range,” Miscovich said. “That may increase to 30%, but our point of view is hybrid work will endure for the longer term. We have some clients that by 2027 or 2030 may have a portion of their workforce in office five days a week and another portion of their workforce at three days a week or three days a month.
“I don’t think there will be ever a future steady state, just given the dynamism of artificial intelligence, talent and distributed work,” he said. “I think we’ll see a continuous evolution and continuous learning mind set relative to future of work strategies.”
As the pandemic eased in 2022 and 2023, US core business centers in large and small cities continued to suffer the after effects or remote- and hybrid-work policies, which led to a 20% to 40% reduction in office space use and a devaluation of properties. The big switch to remote work left many downtowns largely empty for months.
Since then, commercial areas have seen a slow but steady return to the office, with average office occupancy rate hitting more than 60%.
Still, many offices remain partially or completely empty.
“We are approaching 20 quarters of contraction in the office market,” according to Peter Miscovich, global future of work leader at Jones Lang LaSalle IP (JLL), a commercial real estate and investment management services firm. “There are signs of stabilization of vacancies in certain parts of the country.”
According to one recent survey, most companies are pushing for RTO mandates in 2025. The survey by ResumeBuilder found that nine in 10 companies will enact RTO mandates based on data from 764 companies that transitioned to a fully remote work model during the pandemic. But the data is nuanced. Not all RTO policies, of course, require employees to be in the office five days a week.
Kastle
“There’s only 25% of companies, overall, seeking RTO five days per week, and the remaining 75% are involved in various forms of hybrid or hybrid/remote and my forecast is that hybrid will endure,” Miscovich said.
The ResumeBuilder survey results were similar to Miscovich’s findings. The majority of companies are operating with a hybrid model, while 30% require employees to be in the office full-time.
Office occupancy rates fell from 100% in February 2020, at the start of the pandemic’s stay-at-home orders, to just 14% by April of that same year. Over the next four years, those rates have slowly climbed as companies embraced hybrid work policies. But on average, occupancy never fully returned to 100%, according to Kastle Systems, a provider of security key fob technology for 2,600 buildings in 138 US cities.
Recent data shows occupancy rates are again climbing. In January, the peak occupancy rate of US office buildings stood around 46% based on a 10-city average, according to Kastle. Today, more than 61% of buildings are occupied in those same 10 large cities. And cities such as Austin and Houston are seeing occupancy rates as high as 77% to 71%, respectively. Chicago’s office building occupancy rate stands at 69%.
Peak occupancy rates are only half the story. “Peak” relates to days when offices are most full, such as on Mondays and Tuesdays. On less popular days, such as Fridays, office occupancy rates dipped as low as 33% this month.
Kastle
Despite the rise in occupancy rates, office values remain depressed compared to before the pandemic, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). It found there has been a 39% decline in office building values since 2020 — and a large percentage of pre-pandemic leases will come up for renewal in the next few years. That could force some companies to more closely evaluate their office needs.
The COVID pandemic served as something of an unintentional experiment that revealed a host of uncomfortable workplace truths — namely, that most employees always preferred remote work and at-home knowledge workers were just as, if not more, productive. Another realization: working in the office, by default, isn’t as rewarding some people as it is for others, according to Phil Kirschner, an associate partner in McKinsey & Co.’s real estate and people and organizational performance practices.
Not everyone, for example, feels the same level of inclusion and equality in an office setting. “Diverse populations of almost any measure — whether skin color, sexual orientation, physical disability — are affected by in-office requirements, and there’s a higher desire for workplace flexibility either when taking a job or the likelihood to leave a job if you’re not offered it,” Kirschner said in an earlier interview with Computerworld.
Higher quality buildings, such as those that are newer and have more amenities, have fared better of late. That’s prompted a rush to build or renovate older offices that not only have newer amenities and mixed-use spaces (such as combined office, shopping and recreational facilities) but updated technology to better support remote and hybrid workers.
But older properties with fewer amenities could suffer. In particular, Class B, Class C and even lower-end Class A grade buildings could see the biggest valuation declines in the current market; those who are leasing or buying space now want top-notch AAA buildings — those with the latest amenities, technologies, and locations.
“There’s a potential space shortage in certain districts and locations,” Miscovich said. “Even three-days a week in the office is affecting demand. We are seeing demand for that high-quality space, but there’s also the surplus of the obsolete, class B- or C buildings that are not serving the workforce of the future.”
Leading the return-to-office trend are legal firms, financial services organizations, defense contractors, and industrial companies seeking to expand their footprint as the result of business demands.
“And, then the technology sector is picking up in places where they have AI talent demands and key urban centers for tech talent,” Miscovich said. “Technology is fascinating because you have some firms becoming more office centric and others are still offering more of a hybrid approach. We’ll see how that sector plays out over the next couple of years.”
Miscovich describes the pandemic was “an accelerant” and “time machine” that moved the US workforce 10 years into the future in just two years. Remote work was inevitable with the evolution of the digital economy, and the pandemic showed the promise of hybrid and distributed work.
Now workplace design, leadership, culture, workplace practices, change management, hybrid workplace technologies — all need to mature as we go forward beyond the post pandemic world, he said.
“The future of work will be distributed; it will be diverse and it will be dynamic. I think the RTO mandates occurring are for individual companies in that 25% range,” Miscovich said. “That may increase to 30%, but our point of view is hybrid work will endure for the longer term. We have some clients that by 2027 or 2030 may have a portion of their workforce in office five days a week and another portion of their workforce at three days a week or three days a month.
“I don’t think there will be ever a future steady state, just given the dynamism of artificial intelligence, talent and distributed work,” he said. “I think we’ll see a continuous evolution and continuous learning mind set relative to future of work strategies.”
Apple’s big week of Mac news continued with the arrival today of the new M4-based MacBook Pro family, including a powerful new M4 Max processor and a bump to standard memory in the MacBook Air.
“MacBook Pro is an incredibly powerful tool that millions of people use to do their life’s best work, and today we’re making it even better,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, announcing the new machines.
Apple’s latest notebooks follow the introduction of the mighty Mac mini and iMac — also powered by M4 processors – and promise to deliver the kind of power and performance for even the toughest professional workflows. Of course, the energy benefits are also apparent in the 24-hour battery life Apple promises.
Apple Intelligence is visible throughout all the new Macs. But perhaps another facet of Apple’s intelligence is that by introducing a new Mac each day this week, it has grabbed a huge chunk of the news cycle. Apple also quietly beefed up the MacBook Air (the world’s most popular laptop), bestowing M2 and M3 models with 16GB of unified memory as standard, at no additional cost — pretty much confirming that, in the age of AI, 16GB is the new 8GB.
The new MacBook Pro
There’s a lot to like in the new laptops, which can be ordered with an M4, M4 Pro, or an all-new M4 Max chip. Compared to an Intel-based MacBook Pro, the new model provides nearly 10 times faster performance for AI-based workloads and 20 times faster performance for graphics-intensive tasks, Apple said.
In other words, the chips unleash huge leaps forward in computational power similar to what a supercomputer cluster would have given you not so long ago – with estimated battery life that’s the longest we’ve ever had in a Mac. You can also support two high-resolution external displays as well as the built-in display.
All models, both 14-in. and 16-in. configurations, feature a Liquid Retina XDR screen with a nano-texture display option and up to 1,000 nits of brightness (1,600 nits of peak brightness). Equipped with a six-speaker sound system, they offer a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera, Thunderbolt 5 on M4 Pro and M4 Max models, an 8K HDMI port, MagSafe 3, headphone jack, SDXC card slot, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. Available in space black and silver, all can be pre-ordered today; shipments begin Nov. 8.
“Apple silicon has taken the Mac to unprecedented heights, and the rapid pace of innovation continues with M4 Pro and M4 Max,” Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, said in a statement. “With the world’s fastest CPU core, immensely more powerful GPUs, and the fastest Neural Engine ever, the power-efficient performance and capabilities of the M4 family extend its lead as the most advanced lineup of chips in the industry.”
Built using second-generation 3-nanometer technology, the M4 family of chips boasts the world’s fastest CPU core,along with outstanding multithreaded CPU performance. The chips also support increased memory bandwidth, which is water in the desert for large language models (LLMs) you might want to run.
That 24-hour battery life hasn’t made for any compromise in terms of performance. Apple claims the new M4 MacBook Pro will run 1.8 times faster than the M1 MacBook Pro, with some tasks running even faster than that. The Neural Engine is also three times more powerful, which — in combination with the increased 120Gbps memory bandwidth and 16GB installed unified memory — means the computer will be incredibly capable of running and creating new AI.
Apple cherry-picked some illustrations of how this performance equates to getting work done faster, promising image processing in Affinity Photo will be seven times faster than it was with the Intel Core i7 MacBook Pro (13-in.) or 1.8 times faster than in the M1 MacBook Pro. Blender users can expect 3D rendering to be more than 10 times faster than on Intel.
But even those comparisons are thoroughly trashed by the performance you can expect from the M4 Pro Macs. Apple claims that a MacBook Pro with M4 Pro will enjoy a massive 75% increase in memory bandwidth over the prior generation — double that of any AI PC chip. These things really do promise massive enhancements in complex professional workflows in fields like structural engineering or data modeling. Those performance boosts are essential to some industries.
It’s hard to miss just how much performance Apple promises with the M4 Max MacBook Pro: 3.5 times the performance of the M1 Max MacBook Pro. (That’s pretty impressive on its own, given that particular Mac still blows people’s socks off.)
What this means is that the heaviest creative, scientific, or data modelling tasks will be absolutely devoured by this machine. Want to run DNA sequences in Oxford Nanopore? Now you can — an astonishing 23.8 times faster than you could before.
The LLMs we use tomorrow will be built in these Macs, because they can handle the workload it takes to manage nearly 200 billion parameters. It doesn’t stop there, the M4 Max holds a Media Engine with two ProRes accelerators, so media handling (at least on apps that support ProRes) will fly.
Consider this: Apple claims a MacBook Pro with an M4 Max can compile code in Xcode 4.6 times faster than the 16‑in. MacBook Pro with Intel Core i9.
If you recall, I looked at that particular Mac in 2019 and called it the most capable Apple notebook I’d ever used. To deliver a near five-fold performance increase in under five years since then really shows the extent to which the move to Apple Silicon has unleashed evolution on the Mac. This is also more than twice as fast as the 16‑in. MacBook Pro with M1 Max (“a major step forward,” reviewers said).
The 14-in. MacBook Pro with M4 starts at $1,599, and with M4 Pro, $1,999; the 16‑in. MacBook Pro starts at $2,499. I ran a quick build-to-order calculation to find that a 16-in. MacBook Pro with a 16-core M4 Max chip, nano-texture display, 64GB memory, and 1TB SSD will cost you $4,349. Completely maxxed out (bar software) you’re looking at $7,349.
Weirdly, in light of the performance you can expect, I imagine that for some users in some industries even the very highest end system will seem to be a bargain, though most of us don’t need that much power.
Better for the Environment
Apple really is pressing hard on its goal to becoming carbon neutral by 2030. These new Macs are created from a custom alloy that uses 100% recycled aluminum in the enclosure. You’ll also find 100% recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, and 100% recycled tin soldering, gold plating, and copper in multiple printed circuit boards. The packaging has no plastic included.
One more thing
Stop everything for a moment, zoom out, and take another look at Apple’s news this week. You might then recognize that from the $599 Mac mini all the way to the cream of the MacBook Pro crop, Apple now offers systems more than capable of handling any task; even the Mac mini can handle heavy workloads, just a little slower.
Not only this, but with Apple Intelligence, Apple has the foundations for a Mac/iPhone/iPad AI ecosystem no one else can touch. That’s all fine and impressive on its own — but these new pro Mac notebooks add another arrow to Apple’s bow.
Look at it another way: MacBook Pro is already incredibly popular among data scientists and AI researchers. What that means, of course, is that even if Apple doesn’t prevail in the AI race (I wouldn’t bet against it), there’s still a very, very big chance that whatever AI does gain dominance will be something that was, itself, made on a Mac.
And that’s an accomplishment no one else can match. Time to upgrade?
OpenAI intends to design its own AI chips, which would give it an edge over its competitors, according to Reuters. The chips will be developed in collaboration with TSMC and Broadcom, meaning OpenAI will not invest in its own factories.
If all goes according to plan, the first chips could be ready for use as early as 2026.
While waiting for its own chips to arrive, OpenAI has decided to order processors from AMD to be used to train its AI models. (Nvidia chips are currently used for that purpose, but high demand has meant prices for these chips have risen sharply.)
Conducted by Dimensional Research and paid for by Apple device management company Kandji, the annual Apple in the Enterprise survey is revealing. It confirms continued growth in the use of Apple products across the enterprise and reiterates that IT professionals continue to say Apple devices are far less likely to be affected by ransomware.
Just look at the data
Some of the data points are revealing, particularly around security:
77% of IT professionals agree Apple products are easier to secure than Windows and Android.
72% believe that Apple products are more secure than other end-user devices.
59% report that Apple products are less likely to be hit by widespread cyber outages.
The findings come as Apple adoption in the business world continues to increase — apparently at a faster rate than comparable Windows or Android devices, at least in the enterprise. iPhone adoption continues to accelerate, too, the survey suggests.
It’s no wonder, then, that 73% of organizations report the number of Apple products has increased over the last year, driven primarily by employee preference (76%), security (50%), and reliability (43%). Eighty percent of C-level execs say employee demand is forcing that transition, with increased use of iPhones and iPads in the workplace. It is also of note that 67% of IT professionals expect Apple Vision Pro to be a business productivity solution, not just a personal entertainment unit.
The benefits of the Apple switch
Asked what business benefits organizations realized through Apple device provision, IT pros told the researchers:
65% saw increased employee productivity.
58% experienced improved security.
28% claim reduced TCO.
And 21% created additional revenue opportunities.
The data also shows that the bigger (in percentage terms) a company’s Apple deployment gets, the greater the benefits realized. Companies where 50% or more of devices are Apple hardware claimed to have experienced the biggest security improvements, for instance.
Perhaps most important, the survey also confirms that most enterprise IT leaders believe that while artificial intelligence is important, it needs to be safely managed and deployed. Just consider the data:
92% of IT pros (and 72% of C-level execs) are concerned about AI, including worries about errors/inaccuracies (68%), privacy (66%), and security (64%).
71% of IT professionals say Apple does more to protect end-user privacy with AI than other vendors.
67% of companies have implemented restrictions around the use of AI.
Doing it best isn’t always doing it first
In other words, Apple’s approach to deliberate intentionality in such deployments is absolutely the right approach. And it matches what customers need. It confirms that IT pros already believe Apple does more to protect privacy than anyone else. In and of itself, it justifies Apple’s slow and steady approach to AI deployment across its platforms and shows the planks in the eyes of more starry-eyed AI aficionados.
It’s only common sense, of course, to take deliberate steps when deploying a technology that could have such a deep impact on every part of life. And it makes nothing but sense to try to ensure that data concerning you or your company’s use of those services doesn’t suddenly become a tool to give your competitors insight into your company, your people, or your own personal life. You don’t want your productivity-enhancing AI-based services to steal your core ideas and replace your business, one generative AI prompt at a time.
Ultimately, every cloud-based AI service must be as secure as Apple’s Private Cloud Compute promises. The good thing is that IT professionals seemingly already recognize that. The need to mix trust with tech is Apple’s ace card in the AI game, and over time the value of that card will inevitably be better understood.
The added functions can also introduce more complexity for those that rely heavily on Slack to get work done. With the introduction of templates — available now to customers on paid plans — Slack hopes to make it faster and easier to get up and running with new projects.
“Teams shouldn’t be reinventing the wheel with each new project,” Rob Seaman, senior vice president for product at Slack, said in a blog post Wednesday. “Templates provide the setup and framework for every line of business, so there’s no guessing at how to get work started.”
Users can access the template gallery from a tab on the left-hand sidebar in the Slack app, or via Slack’s website. The gallery presents templates tailored to a variety of purposes: marketing campaigns, employee onboarding, or help requests, for example. Templates can also be filtered based on relevance to certain job roles, or topics such as project management or productivity.
With one click, a template will open up all the channels, lists, workflows, and other elements relevant to a project, and add each as a channel tab. Each element is pre-filled or preconfigured to suit the project type, such as a campaign brief document in Slack’s canvas, or a task tracker in lists. The templates are intended to be a starting point: users can then adapt them to fit their purposes more precisely.
Users can also create templates that better fit their workflow and publish them for internal use. Custom templates with organization-wide publishing capabilities are available to customers on Enterprise Grid, the most expensive planned aimed at large organizations, Slack said.
If ever there were a bromance that seemed made in tech heaven, it’s the one between Microsoft and OpenAI. Microsoft was an early investor in OpenAI, initially putting $1 billion into the company, which allowed the upstart firm to develop and release the groundbreaking generative AI-based ChatGPT to effectively launch the current genAI boom.
That helped OpenAI become the most influential and valuable AI startup in the world. (Since then, Microsoft has invested $13 billion more in the company.)
For its part, Microsoft became the world leader in AI thanks to that early investment. It uses ChatGPT as the basis for its line of Copilot tools. It also owns a chunk of OpenAI and, thanks to the relationship, has reaped billions in revenue. The sky seems to be the limit for even more.
Along the way, the two companies lobbied Congress together, plotted strategy together, and seemed to be in lockstep on pretty much everything. When OpenAI ousted Sam Altman as CEO last year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella worked behind the scenes to get him reinstated.
The companies seemed to be so close that Altman called their relationship “the best bromance in tech.” In front of a sizable audience last year at a conference run by OpenAI, Nadella turned to Altman and said, “We love you guys!” Altman responded, “Awwww.”
If it were a movie, the romance would be so treacly, you’d walk out. But that was then. Now, the companies have their knives out for each other.
This should surprise no one. In March, I noted that the two companies “seem more like frenemies than BFFs.” I pointed out that Altman and OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap openly tried to woo enterprises away from Microsoft’s Copilot and toward OpenAI’s Enterprise ChatGPT. Reuters reported that Altman and Lightcap courted more than 300 corporate executives in New York, San Francisco, and London, dissing Microsoft by saying enterprises would be able to work directly with the people who built genAI technology rather than getting it second-hand from Microsoft.
Nadella had previously taken aim at OpenAI, saying, “If OpenAI disappeared tomorrow…, we have all the IP rights and all the capability. We have the people, we have the compute, we have the data, we have everything. We are below them, above them, around them.”
Going from bad to worse
Since then, things have only gotten worse. There are plenty of reasons they’re fighting, but the biggest reason is — you guessed it — money.
Microsoft’s $14 billion investment in OpenAI includes cash as well as computing resources — in particular, the vast amounts of computing power required to train and run OpenAI’s technologies. The most recent cash infusion came in early October, when OpenAI raised $6.6 billion from investors including various banks, investment funds, Microsoft, and AI chip maker Nvidia. (Microsoft reportedly invested $1 billion of that.)
After the round of funding, OpenAI is estimated at having a value of $157 billion.
Even that isn’t enough for OpenAI, and that’s where some of the disagreements begin. Though it may be worth $157 billion, OpenAI is burning through cash, losing $5 billion a year even as its expenses continue to skyrocket. That won’t end soon. In fact, things will likely get worse.
As a result, OpenAI wants Microsoft to provide it with even more computing power. And Microsoft is balking. The Times notes: “OpenAI employees complain that Microsoft is not providing enough computing power…. And some have complained that if another company beat it to the creation of AI that matches the human brain, Microsoft will be to blame because it hasn’t given OpenAI the computing power it needs.”
OpenAI is now looking elsewhere to get those resources. It’s signed a deal worth nearly $10 billion with Oracle to provide it. In addition, Microsoft and OpenAI have recently renegotiated how much Microsoft’s computing power should be valued monetarily, although it’s not clear whether the new deal lessens or increases the financial value.
Because of these kinds of issues, Microsoft has hedged its bets against relying too much on OpenAI for its AI future. Notably, it paid $650 million or more to hire almost the entire staff from the OpenAI competitor Inflection. It also hired Inflection’s former chief executive and co-founder, Mustafa Suleyman, to be in charge of Microsoft’s AI efforts. Suleyman and OpenAI have already had a number of run-ins, with Altman increasingly upset at Suleyman’s hiring.
All this is a prelude to the biggest issue of all: figuring out the fair market value of Microsoft’s ongoing investment in OpenAI. It’s an incredibly complicated issue, because OpenAI was originally founded as a nonprofit company, and Microsoft made much of its investments during that time. OpenAI has since essentially turned itself into a for-profit company.
Quick: When’s the last time you really, truly thought about your Android device’s Quick Settings setup?
If you’re like most mammals I know, the answer probably ranges somewhere between “eons ago” and “never.” And it’s no surprise: Android’s Quick Settings area, seemingly set to get some significant upgrades in next year’s Android 16 release, is one of those things that’s just sort of there. It’s convenient, sure, but it’s all too easy to forget that it’s completely customizable — and expandable, too. It can turn into an invaluable home for your own custom Android shortcuts, if you take the time to build it up accordingly.
The challenge, aside from simply remembering that you can expand that area of your phone’s interface, is knowing where to begin. Google doesn’t have any great way to track down and identify apps that offer Quick Settings additions, and even when you have an app with a cool Quick Settings option on your phone, you might not even realize it’s there.
But hey, that’s what I’m here for — that, and eating copious quantities of meatloaf. But the former is what’s most relevant for our purposes today.
So set aside your own meatloaf stockpile for a moment, and let’s dig into your device’s equally delicious Quick Settings improvement potential — shall we?
Android Quick Settings tile #1: Your timeout override
The shiny screens on these stunning modern smartphones of ours are typically set to shut themselves off after a certain number of seconds. And that’s generally a good thing. Otherwise, the dodo brains among us (hiya!) would forget to shut our screens off every time we got distracted — by a dancing panda passerby, a plate of steaming squared meat, or whatever manner of diversion tends to claim your attention unexpectedly.
Sometimes, though, you genuinely want your screen to stay on for an extended period, even when you aren’t actively caressing it. Maybe you’re poring over a complex document, staring at one of those weird 3D image things everyone was obsessed with in the 90s, or considering which hue of chartreuse is the most rage-inducing color of all.
Whatever the case, an app called Wakey will give you a single-tap switch in your Android Quick Settings area to keep your screen on anytime the need arises.
To get it up and running on your phone:
First, install the app (obviously, right?!). It’s free with an optional $2.50 upgrade to remove ads and enable some extra features, and it doesn’t require any unusual or eyebrow-raising permissions.
Next, swipe down twice from the top of your screen to open your full Quick Settings panel. Tap the pencil-shaped icon within that panel, then find the “Enable Wakey” button in the inactive tiles area.
Press and hold that button and drag it into your active tiles area. If you want it to be especially easy to access, place it in one of the first four spots so that you’ll see it in the top row of options — even just with one swipe down from the top of your screen.
Wakey’s Android Quick Settings tile gives you a quick ‘n’ simple way to keep your screen from timing out as needed.
JR Raphael, IDG
And that’s it: Whenever you want to prevent your screen from timing out and turning off, you can just tap that spiffy new Wakey tile. Just be sure to tap it again when you’re done with whatever you’re doing and ready to have your standard screen timeout kick back in.
Android Quick Settings tile #2: Your on-demand agenda
One of my favorite Android Quick Settings additions comes from a super-simple app that does one thing and does it well: It shows your next calendar event as a tile within your phone’s Quick Settings for exceptionally easy at-a-glance access.
The app is called CalenTile, and there really isn’t much to it: Once installed, it keeps scrolling text with your next event right at your fingertips, from anywhere on your device — and, in a nice little twist, it also lets you tap that tile to pull up an on-demand access panel with more info along with extra shortcuts for editing the event or creating a new event, too.
See your next event right in Android’s Quick Settings panel and tap it for even more info with CalenTile’s convenient addition.
JR Raphael, IDG
Once you’ve got the app installed, all you’ve gotta do is follow the same steps we went over a moment ago to find its tile within your inactive Quick Settings area and drag it into an active position.
CalenTile costs a whopping $1 and doesn’t require any disconcerting permissions.
Android Quick Settings tile #3: A fast task adding option
I don’t know about you, but keeping track of tasks is without a doubt one of the top things I rely on my phone to do. And with a quick adjustment to your Quick Settings, you can make it easier than ever to add something new onto your list.
Both Todoistand Microsoft To Dohave one-tap Quick Settings commands for fast task adding within their respective Android versions. Just install whichever app you like, then edit your Quick Settings to find and activate its tucked-away task-adding tile.
Android Quick Settings tile #4: An easy way to see the weather
While we’re thinking about easier access to important info, how ’bout keeping a quick overview of the current weather a single swipe away — no matter what else you might be doing on your device?
After all, even with all the exceptional Android weather apps out there, there’s something to be said for being able to see that sort of info quickly, without disrupting other tasks and having to head back to your home screen first.
And a handy little app called Chronusis the key to making it happen. Among many other features, Chronus has the easily overlooked option to add a simple tile into your Quick Settings with up-to-the-minute weather for wherever you may be.
Never wonder about the weather again with Chronus’s handy forecast tile in your Android Quick Settings panel.
JR Raphael, IDG
Once you’ve installed the app, you’ll need to open it once, hit the three-line menu icon in its upper-left corner, and select “Quick Settings” — then tap the button to allow the pertinent permissions at the top of the screen that comes up. You can also configure some things about the weather Quick Settings tile’s appearance in that same area.
All that’s left is to bring the tile into your active Quick Settings area, using the same steps from our first item.
Chronus is free, with an optional $3 that unlocks a variety of extra features (including the ability to be able to tap the weather widget for instant extended forecast info).
Android Quick Settings tile #5: Your always-available calculator
Ever find yourself needing to conduct a quick calculation whilst wading around the ocean of information on your dapper Android device?
Sure, you could stop what you’re doing, head back to your home screen, find your calculator app, and then open it up to perform your mathematic magic before plodding your way back to whatever app you started in — but goodness gracious, that’s an awful lot of inefficient steps. And it’s pretty inconvenient, too.
Instead, make sure you have the official Google Calculator appinstalled on your device. It’s already present by default on Pixels and available to download for free on any other Android phone or tablet.
Then, open up your Quick Settings once more and find that pencil-shaped editing icon. You should see the Calculator tile in the inactive area of that editing interface, and with one quick press-and-drag into the active Quick Settings section, your next calculation will be especially easy to pull off.
Another Google-made Android app that’s quietly gained a hidden-by-default Quick Settings shortcut option in recent months is the excellent Google Files app.
Download the free app onto your device, if it isn’t already there, and follow those same steps from a moment ago to find its inactive tile and make it active.
Then, anytime you need to find a file you’ve saved or deal with any other storage-related duty, you can simply swipe down from the top of your screen to tap that freshly revealed shortcut and fly right over to a full-fledged file manager — no home-screen-returning or app-drawer-hunting required.
Android Quick Settings tile #7: Your recording quick-start
This next shortcut is specific to the Pixel owners among us: Google’s self-made Android phones come with an outstanding audio recording called, rather fittingly, Recorder. It’s a spectacular tool for recording everything from meetings to conversations and even rambling note-to-self memos, complete with Google’s unmatched text transcription and even instant cross-device access of all your recordings.
But what few mere mortals realize is that Recorder holds a hidden shortcut that makes starting a recording a snap. And if you’re carrying a Pixel phone, it’s already there on your device and just waiting to be dug up.
All you’ve gotta do is open up your Quick Settings panel and tap the icon to edit it, just like we’ve been doing with every item in this collection — and then look closely at the list of inactive options at the very bottom of the list. Somewhere in that jungle, you should see a tile labeled “Recorder.”
Press and hold that puppy and drag it up to the area with all your active Quick Settings options, and you’ll then be able to find and tap it for a single-step way to start an audio recording almost instantly — without delay.
Android Quick Settings tile #8: A better way to read
The out-of-the-way Android Reading Mode is one of the most useful smartphone features you probably aren’t using. It’s a one-tap tool you can use to transform practically anything on your screen — an email, a document, even an overly cluttered article you’re reading on an otherwise wonderful website (insert awkward casual whistling here) — and turn it into a delightfully distraction-free experience.
loading="lazy" width="400px">Android’s Reading Mode makes any manner of reading instantly more pleasant — and with the associated Quick Settings tile, it’s never more than a swipe and tap away.
JR Raphael, IDG
Reading Mode eliminates any and all mid-text interruptions, and it also empowers you to pick any color, font, size, and general style your peepers prefer. And if all of that isn’t enough, it gives you the option to play whatever you’re reading out loud like a custom podcast, too — at any reading speed you like and even continuing in the background when you move onto other things.
Specific to our purposes here today, though, what matters is the shortcut to summon Reading Mode from your phone’s Quick Settings area whenever you want it.
Just make sure you have the Google-made Reading Mode app installed from the Play Store, then do that double-swipe-down from the top of your screen to open up your full Quick Settings menu. Tap that pencil-shaped editing icon within it again, find the Reading Mode tile within the inactive tiles area, and drag it into an active place.
Ahh — serenity now.
Android Quick Settings tile #9: Your song ID assistant
Okay, so this next one isn’t technically work-related — but with a little creative thinking, it could be.
Say you’re out on a Very Important Business Lunch, and some song starts playing in the restaurant that you know you recognize but can’t quite identify. (Hint: It’s almost certainly by The Scorpions.)
Maddening, right? Enough to keep you distracted and unable to properly focus on the meeting and/or meating at hand?
Get Google’s recently rolled out Song Search tile in your Android device’s Quick Settings, and you can ID the song in seconds and get back to business.
The tile showed up without any fanfare or announcement via an update to the Google app present on every Android device a little while back. If you edit your Quick Settings and look in the inactive tile area, it oughta be there and waiting to be called into action.
Android Quick Settings tile #10: Your built-in virtual remote
Up next is another Android shortcut that’s quietly lurking in your phone’s dustiest corners and waiting to be discovered. And once you bring it out to the forefront, you’ll wonder how you went so long without ever realizing it was there.
It’s a native virtual remote for any Google/Android-TV-associated devices — everything from TVs with that software built in to set-top boxes and even the newer Chromecast/Google TV Streamer With Google TV And Maybe Also Android TV By Google dongle doohickeys. (I’m pretty sure that’s their official name now, right?) If you’ve got any such apparati in your home and/or office, this easy little addition will bring a brilliant upgrade to your life.
The secret to making this bit o’ goodness appear is opening up the Google TV app — y’know, that thing that probably came preinstalled on your phone and that you’ve probably never bothered to look at. Well, get this: If you open that app up even once, a new TV Remote tile will magically appear in the invisible area of your phone’s Quick Settings panel.
And from there, all that’s left is to edit your Quick Settings — using the same exact steps from above — to drag it up or over into an active and visible position.
Once you do, you’ll always have a universal control for all of your Google-connected screens at your frothy fingertips.
Android Quick Settings tile #11: Instant access to anything
Whew! We’ve covered a bunch of ground already. But if you’re finding yourself wishing you could get to another specific app or action via a custom Quick Settings shortcut you haven’t seen yet, a Swiss-Army-knife-style app called Tile Shortcutsis exactly the tool you need.
Tile Shortcuts makes it as simple as can be to create your own custom Quick Settings tiles for all sorts of specific purposes — like:
Launching any app on your device
Launching a specific process within an app you have installed
Opening any website you want
Performing a variety of system-level activities and settings adjustments
You can even use it to create entire folders of apps, if you’re really feeling adventurous.
Just note: After you create any new tile within Tile Shortcuts, it’s up to you to add it into the active area of your Quick Settings panel — using the same steps we’ve gone over a few times now. Note, too, that the tile may have a generic-seeming name, like “Tile Shortcuts #1,” until you drag it into the active area of your Quick Settings setup and save out.
Tile Shortcuts is free, with optional donations for the developer.
And with that, congratulations are officially in order, my fellow efficiency-seeking emu. You’ve just made your Android phone substantially more useful — and that, m’dear, is a feat worth celebrating with mountains of seasoned meat.
Get six full days of advanced Android knowledge with my free Android Shortcut Supercourse. You’ll learn tons of time-saving tricks for your phone!
Amazon might have accidentally broken the story early, but as anticipated the introduction of Apple’s all-new, M4-processor-powered Mac mini is making big waves. The tiny but incredibly powerful desktop exemplifies all the advantages of Apple Silicon — smaller, faster, and cheaper than we could have seen before, a new building block in the Apple Intelligence ecosystem.
All the rumors were true (again)
It turns out that all the expectation for the tiny Mac were correct:
The Mac mini offers either an M4 or M4 Pro chip.
The M4 CPU offers 4 performance, 6 efficiency cores and a 10-core GPU.
The M4 Pro offers 10 performance and 4 efficiency cores, boosted by a 20-core GPU. And it has 75% more memory bandwidth than the M3 Pro, twice as much bandwidth as available to any AI chip.
All have at least 16GB of unified memory.
As anticipated, it’s much faster than the M1 Mac mini which blew everybody’s minds when it was introduced, and the Neural engine in the M4 Pro model is more than three times faster than the M1 Mac mini.
For connectivity, you’ll find two USB-C ports, a headphone jack on the front, and three Thunderbolt 4 ports (or Thunderbolt 5 ports on the Mac Pro models), Ethernet, and HDMI at the rear.
The M4 Mac mini can support up to two 6K displays and up to one 5K display, while the M4 Pro can support up to three 6K displays at 60Hz. You get hardware-based ray-tracing, too.
For size, it’s just 5-in. square (about 127mm each side).
Pricing: Mac mini with M4 starts at $599. The Mac mini with an M4 Pro starts at $1,399.
Apple Silicon has been transforming Apple’s ecosystem ever since the company acquired PA Semi. First, it enabled the company to deliver uniquely powerful smartphones that delivered computational performance at low energy. Apple has now taken those ideas and put them inside Macs equipped with M-series chips. Not only do these Macs make the Intel chips the company previously used the equivalent of Elmer Fudd trying (and failing) to keep up with the Road Runner, but they also deliver performance while sipping electricity.
As a result, Apple can continue to focus on delivering real computers in multiple form factors — want a tablet? Here’s an M4 iPad Pro. Looking for a super powerful laptop? MacBook Pro is there for you. Searching for a small “bring your own mouse and keyboard” system that won’t break the bank for use in your home or office? This is what Mac mini was born for.
Apple Silicon continues to unleash the imagination of Apple’s product design teams, and I suspect we’ve barely seen what’s coming. And all this performance power is now available to Apple Intelligence, which Apple will introduce globally into spring 2025.
Hyperbole aside, how will Mac mini help you get your work done? Apple shares the following proof points to attest to the performance boost you can expect from M4 chips in mini:
When compared to the best-selling PC desktop in its price range, the mini is up to six times faster and 1/20 its size.
With M4, Mac mini delivers up to 1.8 times faster CPU performance and 2.2 times faster GPU performance over the M1 model.
When compared to the Mac mini with an Intel Core i7, the new M4 mini delivers up to 33 times faster image upscaling performance in Photomator.
When compared to an M1 Mac mini, the new model is up to twice as fast transcribing on-device AI speech-to-text in MacWhisper.
These real world performance advantages are even more impressive on the M4 Pro device.
When compared to the Mac mini with Intel Core i7, the Mac mini with M4 Pro performs spreadsheet calculations up to four times faster in Microsoft Excel. It’s also 26 times faster at DNA sequencing in Oxford Nanopore MinKNOW.
The Neural Engine in the M4 Pro is also more than three times faster than in the M1 Mac mini.
M4 Pro supports up to 64GB of unified memory and 273GBps of memory bandwidth — twice as much as any AI PC chip — for accelerating AI workloads.
So, apart from being smaller, faster, and more energy efficient, how else can the new Mac mini help your company reduce its carbon impact? Just by existing, I suppose — the new Mac mini is Apple’s first carbon neutral Mac. It is made with more than 50% recycled content overall, including 100% recycled aluminum in the enclosure, 100% recycled gold plating in all Apple-designed printed circuit boards, and 100% recycled rare earth elements in all magnets. Apple has also told us the device uses 85% less aluminium than it did before. (Even the electricity used in its manufacture is sourced from 100% renewable electricity.)
This is important stuff and marks a really solid stepping stone on the company’s progress toward being completely carbon neutral by the end of the decade. But Apple is going even a little further than that.
The company understands that within carbon neutrality, it must also consider the consequences of its products during normal use. To address this, Apple has invested in clean energy projects around the world to help mitigate the electricity consumption customers will cause when using these Macs. It is also investing in carbon credits, which it characterizes as being “high-quality.”
Apple has slammed some carbon credit schemes for not delivering what they promise, but in this case has focused those efforts on nature-based projects. Finally, the packaging for the Mac is also entirely fiber-based. Apple aims to remove all plastic from its packaging by next year.
The new AI PC
What this means for users is that Apple’s new AI PC is also the most environmentally-friendly PC. For enterprise buyers, it means that when you purchase a larger number of these machines you’re also ticking a few more boxes in your corporate sustainability policy, while also entering a new space for digital transformation of your business. Plus, of course, you’re reducing your TCO, tech support draw, and reducing your exposure to ransomware and hacks.
With Apple Intelligence already available in some nations and scheduled to arrive in Europe in April next year, Apple’s approach to AI is mandatory. It has set out to design a safe, private, and secure system that works across its entire ecosystem, and the immense contribution of Private Cloud Compute means any business can begin to explore the productivity-boosting capability of AI on machines more powerful than anything else you can purchase at that price.
And given that Private Cloud Compute is something you can weave into your internal enterprise applications, it makes sense for heavily regulated industries to explore it, too. The company is defining what everyone should expect from cloud-based AI.
It’s also important to think about how Apple Intelligence works across Apple’s ecosystem — smartphone, tablet, and Mac. It means the company now offers business the fastest and most flexible secure AI experience. It’s hard not to avoid thinking that when it comes to the incoming world of AI PCs, Apple now (as anticipated) offers the world’s very best ecosystem for AI — all in a tiny box that has created very big waves in a very big pond.
By its actions, Apple is making it clear that it sees the AI opportunity very well and intends to seize the moment.
