I think the marketing of performance has always been a subthread. But the actual machines have always been merely "good enough". The 68k macs lagged PCs signi

I think the marketing of performance has always been a subthread. But the actual machines have always been merely "good enough". The 68k macs lagged PCs significantly. PPC had a brief moment where it was faster than 486/P5 devices but then got demolished by P6+ cores, to the extent that Apple had to switch to Intel themselves. Then for almost two decades they shipped what amounted to the same silicon as high end windows laptops. MacBooks were "high performance", but not in a way that wasn't accessible to HP or Lenovo. But all that relies on it not being a lie. If you lock your platform marketing not into merely "Insanely Great" but into the idea of Apple Silicon being best, then you need to make damn sure it actually is. And right now it is! But it needs to stay that way if you're going to bet the platform on it.