No marketing attempt by Intel or anyone against Apple will work. Even it might backfire to Intel. Apple fans are well informed and know Apple well.
I rather see Intel go back to the principles of Andrew Grove and head down work hard to create products Intel once dominated. And take the crown back from AMD rather worry about Apple.
There is no doubt the Apple ecosystem is highly managed and controlled. Therefore Apple decides from a marketing-driven perspective when or if new technologies get released. You’ll never see a touch screen Mac because touch screens are the purview of the iPad. With Apple Silicon the performance of the system heavily depends on the RAM being integrated on the same silicon as the CPU - which means RAM upgradability will probably/can never be offered. However SSD’s could be upgradeable but Apple chooses not to offer that for marketing reasons. If Apple didn’t price gouge on upgrades for RAM and Storage it would be a different story (these upgrades are huge profit makers). Given Apple’s big focus on sustainability it’s unfortunate that some of their systems can’t be upgraded to give the system a longer useful life. But Intel has failed to perform over the past 5 years regarding advances in manufacturing technology (no where near ready to offer 5nm chips). Intel could be offering more tightly coupled CPU/RAM architectures. Or lower power consumption designs for laptops. Or advancing Windows on ARM technology. Intel missed the boat on mobile platform technology as well. And since Microsoft is in control of Windows there will never be the tight hardware/OS coupling Apple Silicon offers. Intel was fat, dumb and happy and unmotivated to innovate. Plus Intel should have not have been surprised by Apple’s move to new technology. IBM and before them, Motorola were both pushed aside by Apple as changes to new CPU technologies occurred. I think Intel is pushing this advertising campaign because of a bruised ego and trying to prove to the stock market that they haven’t totally messed up. I don’t think they have any expectation that Apple is capable of converting a huge chunk of the Wintel market to Apple - there’s too much inertia to overcome. Kudos to Apple for truly innovating.
Look at the mice type disclaimer: "Real people paid for their time and opinions." That also applies to actors. There is nothing in the ad saying "NOT actors."
THOSE ARE ACTORS (1st year acting school actors, but still, actors).
There is no doubt the Apple ecosystem is highly managed and controlled. Therefore Apple decides from a marketing-driven perspective when or if new technologies get released. You’ll never see a touch screen Mac because touch screens are the purview of the iPad. With Apple Silicon the performance of the system heavily depends on the RAM being integrated on the same silicon as the CPU - which means RAM upgradability will probably/can never be offered. However SSD’s could be upgradeable but Apple chooses not to offer that for marketing reasons. If Apple didn’t price gouge on upgrades for RAM and Storage it would be a different story (these upgrades are huge profit makers). Given Apple’s big focus on sustainability it’s unfortunate that some of their systems can’t be upgraded to give the system a longer useful life.
Many Windows users “upgrade” their PCs by buying a new PC more often (3-4 years). My iMac is 8 years old and works for me.
So that's things that PCs do and Macs don't. I wasn't as excited as the "users" in the ad, the only one that attracts me is the wider choice of games.
The hardware items only make sense until you think about actually using them. Why would I want a touchscreen on a laptop? It's too far from the keyboard and trackpad where my hands spend their time - much quicker to move the pointer and click or to type a shortcut than to break rhythm to move to tap the screen. And a foldy laptop that claims also to be a tablet just ends up with tablet compromises on a machine with laptop weight and size.
The upgradable RAM is a more complex issue: it would be great to be able to upgrade RAM when it got cheaper. However, there are trade-offs and these are not so attractive: an access panel is a complexity (and design constraint) while conventional sockets are bulkier and less reliable that soldered-in devices and that's before considering the way AS packages the RAMs for speed. Putting off a decision always sounds attractive but I doubt if many typical users would actually upgrade RAM, they'd just suffer those disadvantages.
Couple things come to mind from this video. 1) this is badly made and for the lack of a better word, desperate, 2) why is a processor company marketing Windows and features on computers that use their products, 3) this only exists to market for people who are not into the Apple ecosystem to sell them that - even Apple fanboys (who are dumb) look at how amazing these devices are, 4) TOUCHSCREENS and 5) there are some issues with Macs, and ideological differences I personally have with the way Macs have been going towards (for a long time).
Optional rant on the fifth point: I prefer Apple devices: how they look, how they're priced (they are not more expensive than other premium stuff, except the upgrade tiers make me cry damnit). But in all honesty I don't like the operating systems (iOS, iPadOS, MacOS) that much, but prefer them very much over Windows, ChromeOS and Android. I'd stay entrenched in the Linux and Open Source world, but in general the hardware is ugly, outdated and expensive in comparison, which is why I bought my first Mac in 2013-ish and then couple years later my iPhone and iPad. There's not much I'd like to change over Apple hardware, except make it more serviceable by me (more screws, less glue!).
The software ecosystem works well enough for me, but it's not magical how it works and I still think I had things easier on my Linux ecosystem of yesteryear. Thankfully, modern hardware is much better and longer lasting than 10 years ago so it doesn't matter that much that they solder the components most prone to wearing down straight to the motherboard, even if I'd really prefer sockets for them.. /rant
...so far I've chosen to upgrade and stay on macs from 2011 and prior for many of the reasons cited, and have been exploring open source both on macOS and Linux. One favourite design is a 2011 i7 Mini with a discrete GPU and dual drive bays, now running upgraded SSD & 16GB ram. Another is the mac pro, fully upgradable until Apple dropped support, despite still being very capable...
Will macOS' reliance on proprietary silicon also have downsides, irrespective of performance gains...?
A main vertical software application developer now publicly advises to wait six to nine months before reliance on the latest macOS release. Is the recent FB outage a reminder of single point of failure ?
I understand 32 bit apps are still supported in Windows. I know some who have either switched back to pc or are contemplating it because the mac seems increasingly inflexible and limiting...
Well yeah, Apple Silicon computers don't do boot camp.
I do however, expect M1x computers to run x86 programs under ARM Windows in Parallels using the x86->ARM translator (much like Rosetta 2), and expect that since Parallels front-ends DirectX and issues metal calls that we might have the ability to run x86 games at full speed and full resolution.
This workflow should bypass the big Wintel discrete graphics pipeline bottleneck: format requests in main memory, compress them, transmit them over PCIe, receive the requests and data in GPU memory, decompress them, and finally execute them. These are all steps which consume realtime clock ticks but do not contribute to getting pixels on screen. Computational results have to go through the whole process in reverse for the return trip.
This may lead me to maximize RAM so I can run bigger VMs.
Nothing they said is technically wrong, but it's incredibly misleading.
There are plenty of PCs, including very popular ones from mainstream brands, that are similarly not expandable. Especially if you are shopping for one that is thin and light. My work PC (an HP ZBook Fury 17 G7) is very expandable, but it also weighs a lot (base weight is 6 lb and can get heavier with some options) and is 1" thick - a lot of people would find that unacceptable.
Intel mentions a lot of features, but you can't get them all in a single computer, even though they would like to imply otherwise.
You can get all of these in PCs featuring AMD processors as well.
All the big PC makers are now dipping their toes into the ARM processor market as well. It may take a while to become popular, but when they do, you can expect the gaming market and cool hardware designed to follow right along. Because ultimately, nothing presented in that ad has anything to do with Intel.
Nobody but nobody buys a Mac because it's a good deal on the hardware. They buy it because they want to run macOS or want to run macOS applications. Once you've made that decision, it really doesn't matter what features you can buy on an incompatible computer.
Nothing here is new to anybody who cares. Just walk through your local Best Buy (or Micro Center or Target or WalMart) and you can see all of this. And if you're OK running Windows (or Linux, I suppose), I don't think any serious Mac user (not counting fanboys - who exist for all products) would tell you not to.
Yes, all those computers are sold today. How many people are flocking to buy them? Like that really cool dual-screen laptop (Asus Zenbook Pro Duo)? I saw it reviewed in 2019 (Linus Tech Tips), but kudos to you if you've ever seen one used in the real world. People see gee-whiz features and think they would like it, but when they see the cost (starting at $1500-3000 depending on model), size and weight, they quickly change their minds.
Could Apple design computers with these features? Only a fool would say they couldn't. But would they be able to sell enough units for them to be as profitable as the Macs they're selling today? That's a much much more difficult question that nobody here (or at Intel) knows enough to answer.
Sure there are a lot of flashy hardware options these PC's have over the mac. But take those same "actors" and sit them down in front of a newest model MacBook vs. a PC and let them actually see the user experience. Show them the advantages of Mac OS vs Windows (especially if they are really Apple users and are already in the ecosystem). Mac's advantage is the ecosystem and the streamlined experience across all their Apple devices. And the speed and power of Apple silicon vs. a buggy PC.
Just like the iPhone vs. an Android. The Android will have more RAM, a larger battery, etc. But it's the efficiency of the hardware behind the scenes that makes it a better product even without all the glitz. Any Apple fan knows this.
Samsung tried to compare their phones to the iPhone in advertising for years and look where it got them. When was the last time you saw an Apple add that said "the iPhone is better than the Samsung Galaxy because..." Not necessary.
I see this commercial as less of an attempt to get Apple loyalists to switch to Wintel machines and more of an undercover attempt to convince Wintel manufacturers that they should continue to use Intel chips and not research rolling their own silicon like Apple. Apple may account for a small percentage of Intel's sales, but if Lenovo, Samsung, Acer, Asus, etc.. decide to make their own, intel would be screwed. This commercial reassures those manufactures that the grass isn't greener and that users really do want Wintel. The irony is that they have just proven the fact that users are more concerned about the end experience meeting their needs (touchscreen, gaming, upgrading....) than they are the processor. The better commercial would have been to have the 'users' play with an Intel Mac disguised as an M1 and point out the features that no longer work on the M1 (dual screens, bootcamp, [not sure there is a 3rd thing]). Sorry for the rambling.
Comments
Fan: does it run MacOS?
Intel: no.
Fan: Bye.
The hardware items only make sense until you think about actually using them. Why would I want a touchscreen on a laptop? It's too far from the keyboard and trackpad where my hands spend their time - much quicker to move the pointer and click or to type a shortcut than to break rhythm to move to tap the screen. And a foldy laptop that claims also to be a tablet just ends up with tablet compromises on a machine with laptop weight and size.
The upgradable RAM is a more complex issue: it would be great to be able to upgrade RAM when it got cheaper. However, there are trade-offs and these are not so attractive: an access panel is a complexity (and design constraint) while conventional sockets are bulkier and less reliable that soldered-in devices and that's before considering the way AS packages the RAMs for speed. Putting off a decision always sounds attractive but I doubt if many typical users would actually upgrade RAM, they'd just suffer those disadvantages.
Optional rant on the fifth point:
I prefer Apple devices: how they look, how they're priced (they are not more expensive than other premium stuff, except the upgrade tiers make me cry damnit). But in all honesty I don't like the operating systems (iOS, iPadOS, MacOS) that much, but prefer them very much over Windows, ChromeOS and Android. I'd stay entrenched in the Linux and Open Source world, but in general the hardware is ugly, outdated and expensive in comparison, which is why I bought my first Mac in 2013-ish and then couple years later my iPhone and iPad. There's not much I'd like to change over Apple hardware, except make it more serviceable by me (more screws, less glue!).
The software ecosystem works well enough for me, but it's not magical how it works and I still think I had things easier on my Linux ecosystem of yesteryear. Thankfully, modern hardware is much better and longer lasting than 10 years ago so it doesn't matter that much that they solder the components most prone to wearing down straight to the motherboard, even if I'd really prefer sockets for them..
/rant
I do however, expect M1x computers to run x86 programs under ARM Windows in Parallels using the x86->ARM translator (much like Rosetta 2), and expect that since Parallels front-ends DirectX and issues metal calls that we might have the ability to run x86 games at full speed and full resolution.
This workflow should bypass the big Wintel discrete graphics pipeline bottleneck: format requests in main memory, compress them, transmit them over PCIe, receive the requests and data in GPU memory, decompress them, and finally execute them. These are all steps which consume realtime clock ticks but do not contribute to getting pixels on screen. Computational results have to go through the whole process in reverse for the return trip.
This may lead me to maximize RAM so I can run bigger VMs.
Just like the iPhone vs. an Android. The Android will have more RAM, a larger battery, etc. But it's the efficiency of the hardware behind the scenes that makes it a better product even without all the glitz. Any Apple fan knows this.
Samsung tried to compare their phones to the iPhone in advertising for years and look where it got them. When was the last time you saw an Apple add that said "the iPhone is better than the Samsung Galaxy because..." Not necessary.