4 ms·

> Finally, ending with “free of charge” lets us know that we aren’t going to paying more for this increased efficiency. Hmm, I thought this was a cleverly veil

> Finally, ending with “free of charge” lets us know that we aren’t going to paying more for this increased efficiency. Hmm, I thought this was a cleverly veiled joke. Free of charge no charger, wink wink chuckle. > However, even without a fan, there is no tradeoff with performance. There most certainly is a trade off with performance. The Macbook Air throttles after around 10m of extensive work as far as I know. The marketing claims no such thing, either. It just claims that the Macbook Air is thin and fan-less. > real problem is that most people hate the sound of their laptop’s fan cranking away while they are trying to get work done This is a bit of a generous interpretation. Instead, I'd argue that Apple thought how they can differentiate, and came up with the idea of reducing fan noise, which can be considered a "cool feature". The fact that their faulty keyboards on the previous 3 (?) generations of Macbooks were insanely loud and obnoxious somehow didn't matter in their quest for silence. The article strikes me as looking too deep into something it idolizes. Yes, Apple is great at marketing. Can you get away with the same writing if you're a small or a medium-sized company? Depends on who's your target audience (and I'm sure it also depends on your brand). Funnily enough, the article doesn't mention target audience. It doesn't mention why certain tactics work (or when would they not work). It takes Apple's claims at face value, without deeper thought. I think a fellow commenter summary of "sell benefits, not features" is fair to the article, as the article doesn't offer that much more.

mountainb 6y ago
I dunno. The M1 is a great mobile chip. But high performance is not what you should expect from a mobile chip. You can hope for high performance (for a mobile chip). I don't think you can learn much from this presentation. It's not that special compared to how other companies present performance differences. "Performance vs. power" is also confusing, speaking as someone who looks at benchmark results for things all the time and who counts as a hardware enthusiast. What is "latest laptop PC chip?" A Wintel laptop on 14nm++? Duh. I don't understand it, and I know someone who doesn't focus on hardware won't understand it either. The presentation is generally pretty deceptive. There are other much less confusing charts showing relative performance of the M1 in laptop benchmarks that reflect realistic workloads. And this new set of hardware releases has been very well received even among the typically Mac-critical. The ML slide he's writing about undermines what he's talking about in terms of clarity and 'talking like a human.' It is just gibberish, equivalent to Star Trek nonsense about dilithium crystals transfobulating the warp core. All it means is "has the same features that have been standard for a decade or more on every operating system except a little better, working on more cores than before." This is not Apple's best marketing work, but it is their best actual laptop product in a while: go figure.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >I don't think you can learn much from this presentation. It's not that special compared to how other companies present performance differences. I beg to differ. Other companies can't even be bothered to come up with proper names for their products, and you get the nth "XV356E-52 mark II" style product in their catalogues...
- avianlyric 6y ago
  > I dunno. The M1 is a great mobile chip. But high performance is not what you should expect from a mobile chip. You can hope for high performance (for a mobile chip). I think this sentence automatically counts you out of the target for this marketing. Most people don't even know what a "mobile chip" is, except maybe something you find in phone. They certainly won't be looking at the M1 and thinking "mobile chip". You not being in target for the marketing also explains why you find the "Performance vs. power" graph confusing. Again most people don't know what a "Wintel" even is, never mind 14nm++ (is a big number or a small number?). "latest laptop PC chip?" is perfect, exactly because most people have no idea what the latest laptop PC chip is. What they will know is how fast their current laptop "feels", how new it is, and can then extrapolate how fast they think a "latest chip" should be. By extension, they can figure out what Apple is trying to tell them. > Duh. I don't understand it, and I know someone who doesn't focus on hardware won't understand it either. Well I know a few people who don't focus on hardware. When talking to them about the new MacBooks they definitely had an idea of how fast a new computer might run, or at least they new it was faster than their current computer. That all you need to understand Apple's graph. > There are other much less confusing charts showing relative performance of the M1 in laptop benchmarks that reflect realistic workloads Again depends on your audience. Most people don't really know what a benchmark is (or even workloads) never mind how to interpret them. As someone who in theory know about benchmarks etc, even I struggle to interpret the graphs and it always takes several minutes to get to grips with the data. Even at that point, the only conclusion I come away with is that thing A is 2x faster than thing B. Which is exactly what Apple's graphs show, but without me needing to do mental gymnastics. > The ML slide he's writing about undermines what he's talking about in terms of clarity and 'talking like a human.' It is just gibberish, equivalent to Star Trek nonsense about dilithium crystals transfobulating the warp core. All it means is "has the same features that have been standard for a decade or more on every operating system except a little better, working on more cores than before." I don't ML slide is targeted at the general population. Rather it's for people who know a little bit about tech, have heard about this ML magic, maybe read a couple of articles, and the blurb helps them feel a bit smart because they can understand it, then explain it to their less techy friends. > This is not Apple's best marketing work, but it is their best actual laptop product in a while: go figure. The laptops are selling like hot cakes. Clearly the marketing works. There's an almost infinite supply of examples showing that building something good just isn't enough for it to sell. You actually need to market it properly. The evidence show that Apple have nailed it for the new Macs.
moogleii 6y ago
> The fact that their faulty keyboards on the previous 3 (?) generations of Macbooks were insanely loud and obnoxious somehow didn't matter in their quest for silence. I'm curious how you'd describe external mechanical keyboards with cherry reds or blues. "Ludicrously", perhaps? Even my Logitech keyboard was louder. > The article strikes me as looking too deep into something it idolizes. Isn't this the author's first Apple product? Or at least his first purchase with less feelings of disdain? Idolizes...insanely loud. I see your points, but let's not get carried away here.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  > I'm curious how you'd describe external mechanical keyboards with cherry reds or blues. "Ludicrously", perhaps? Even my Logitech keyboard was louder. I imagine there's a counterexample somewhere, but I don't generally see those types of keyboards on thin-and-light class laptops. They're used in big gaming/workstation machines which have other sources of noise than the keyboard!
- BossingAround 6y ago
  > I'm curious how you'd describe external mechanical keyboards with cherry reds or blues. "Ludicrously", perhaps? Even my Logitech keyboard was louder. The point wasn't to say that the keyboard was "insanely loud" in and of itself. The point was to say that to think Apple cares for quiet sound is to disregard the comparatively amazingly loud (and generally faulty) keyboard. So it's not really the quietness Apple it after. It's the cool factor, a differentiation feature. Otherwise, if it was a genuine desire for quiet environment, the keyboard wouldn't have made sense. Tangentially, I do own a number of these "ludicrously loud" mechanical keyboards (with various switches). I wouldn't take them with me to a library, or a lecture hall though.
  - bryzaguy 6y ago
    I know the main reason “no fan” speaks to me is because I choose when the keyboard is noisy and have no power over the fan. I generally find the clicking of the keyboard to be pleasant while the fan is obnoxious.
sdflhasjd 6y ago
I hate the sound of my laptop fan, because it means the processor is throttling now, and I'm limited by the hardware. I'm going to hate using a fanless laptop because I know it's throttling all the time...
- saagarjha 6y ago
  This isn't how the M1 chip works.
  - sdflhasjd 6y ago
    I know it doesn't throttle _all the time_, but I'm going to worry about it all the time anyway.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      You won't while it's smoking the Intel Mac it replaced.
- throwaway2245 6y ago
  I also find it useful to react to the laptop fan sound, which is often an early indication that something is wrong.
saagarjha 6y ago
> I thought this was a cleverly veiled joke. It absolutely is. Apple has been doing these for years, it's their style.

mountainb 6y ago

I dunno. The M1 is a great mobile chip. But high performance is not what you should expect from a mobile chip. You can hope for high performance (for a mobile chip). I don't think you can learn much from this presentation. It's not that special compared to how other companies present performance differences. "Performance vs. power" is also confusing, speaking as someone who looks at benchmark results for things all the time and who counts as a hardware enthusiast. What is "latest laptop PC chip?" A Wintel laptop on 14nm++? Duh. I don't understand it, and I know someone who doesn't focus on hardware won't understand it either. The presentation is generally pretty deceptive. There are other much less confusing charts showing relative performance of the M1 in laptop benchmarks that reflect realistic workloads. And this new set of hardware releases has been very well received even among the typically Mac-critical. The ML slide he's writing about undermines what he's talking about in terms of clarity and 'talking like a human.' It is just gibberish, equivalent to Star Trek nonsense about dilithium crystals transfobulating the warp core. All it means is "has the same features that have been standard for a decade or more on every operating system except a little better, working on more cores than before." This is not Apple's best marketing work, but it is their best actual laptop product in a while: go figure.

coldtea 6y ago
>I don't think you can learn much from this presentation. It's not that special compared to how other companies present performance differences. I beg to differ. Other companies can't even be bothered to come up with proper names for their products, and you get the nth "XV356E-52 mark II" style product in their catalogues...
avianlyric 6y ago
> I dunno. The M1 is a great mobile chip. But high performance is not what you should expect from a mobile chip. You can hope for high performance (for a mobile chip). I think this sentence automatically counts you out of the target for this marketing. Most people don't even know what a "mobile chip" is, except maybe something you find in phone. They certainly won't be looking at the M1 and thinking "mobile chip". You not being in target for the marketing also explains why you find the "Performance vs. power" graph confusing. Again most people don't know what a "Wintel" even is, never mind 14nm++ (is a big number or a small number?). "latest laptop PC chip?" is perfect, exactly because most people have no idea what the latest laptop PC chip is. What they will know is how fast their current laptop "feels", how new it is, and can then extrapolate how fast they think a "latest chip" should be. By extension, they can figure out what Apple is trying to tell them. > Duh. I don't understand it, and I know someone who doesn't focus on hardware won't understand it either. Well I know a few people who don't focus on hardware. When talking to them about the new MacBooks they definitely had an idea of how fast a new computer might run, or at least they new it was faster than their current computer. That all you need to understand Apple's graph. > There are other much less confusing charts showing relative performance of the M1 in laptop benchmarks that reflect realistic workloads Again depends on your audience. Most people don't really know what a benchmark is (or even workloads) never mind how to interpret them. As someone who in theory know about benchmarks etc, even I struggle to interpret the graphs and it always takes several minutes to get to grips with the data. Even at that point, the only conclusion I come away with is that thing A is 2x faster than thing B. Which is exactly what Apple's graphs show, but without me needing to do mental gymnastics. > The ML slide he's writing about undermines what he's talking about in terms of clarity and 'talking like a human.' It is just gibberish, equivalent to Star Trek nonsense about dilithium crystals transfobulating the warp core. All it means is "has the same features that have been standard for a decade or more on every operating system except a little better, working on more cores than before." I don't ML slide is targeted at the general population. Rather it's for people who know a little bit about tech, have heard about this ML magic, maybe read a couple of articles, and the blurb helps them feel a bit smart because they can understand it, then explain it to their less techy friends. > This is not Apple's best marketing work, but it is their best actual laptop product in a while: go figure. The laptops are selling like hot cakes. Clearly the marketing works. There's an almost infinite supply of examples showing that building something good just isn't enough for it to sell. You actually need to market it properly. The evidence show that Apple have nailed it for the new Macs.

moogleii 6y ago

> The fact that their faulty keyboards on the previous 3 (?) generations of Macbooks were insanely loud and obnoxious somehow didn't matter in their quest for silence. I'm curious how you'd describe external mechanical keyboards with cherry reds or blues. "Ludicrously", perhaps? Even my Logitech keyboard was louder. > The article strikes me as looking too deep into something it idolizes. Isn't this the author's first Apple product? Or at least his first purchase with less feelings of disdain? Idolizes...insanely loud. I see your points, but let's not get carried away here.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> I'm curious how you'd describe external mechanical keyboards with cherry reds or blues. "Ludicrously", perhaps? Even my Logitech keyboard was louder. I imagine there's a counterexample somewhere, but I don't generally see those types of keyboards on thin-and-light class laptops. They're used in big gaming/workstation machines which have other sources of noise than the keyboard!
BossingAround 6y ago
> I'm curious how you'd describe external mechanical keyboards with cherry reds or blues. "Ludicrously", perhaps? Even my Logitech keyboard was louder. The point wasn't to say that the keyboard was "insanely loud" in and of itself. The point was to say that to think Apple cares for quiet sound is to disregard the comparatively amazingly loud (and generally faulty) keyboard. So it's not really the quietness Apple it after. It's the cool factor, a differentiation feature. Otherwise, if it was a genuine desire for quiet environment, the keyboard wouldn't have made sense. Tangentially, I do own a number of these "ludicrously loud" mechanical keyboards (with various switches). I wouldn't take them with me to a library, or a lecture hall though.
- bryzaguy 6y ago
  I know the main reason “no fan” speaks to me is because I choose when the keyboard is noisy and have no power over the fan. I generally find the clicking of the keyboard to be pleasant while the fan is obnoxious.

sdflhasjd 6y ago

I hate the sound of my laptop fan, because it means the processor is throttling now, and I'm limited by the hardware. I'm going to hate using a fanless laptop because I know it's throttling all the time...

saagarjha 6y ago
This isn't how the M1 chip works.
- sdflhasjd 6y ago
  I know it doesn't throttle _all the time_, but I'm going to worry about it all the time anyway.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    You won't while it's smoking the Intel Mac it replaced.
throwaway2245 6y ago
I also find it useful to react to the laptop fan sound, which is often an early indication that something is wrong.

saagarjha 6y ago

> I thought this was a cleverly veiled joke. It absolutely is. Apple has been doing these for years, it's their style.