5 ms·

It's funny how when Jony Ive and Steve Jobs were at the helm, Apple users always said performance wasn't everything and what truly matters is the complete packa

It's funny how when Jony Ive and Steve Jobs were at the helm, Apple users always said performance wasn't everything and what truly matters is the complete package. Nowadays, it has flipped. The company's competitive advantage is their best in class chips. Every year I try high-end Windows laptops and Android phones and they are great to use but their performance aren't up to par and I always go back to Apple.

xxpor 3y ago
In the mobile market though, perf can directly translate into battery life.
- davnicwil 3y ago
  Yeah, and it's important in the laptop market too. The top line performance of the M chips is obviously fantastic per se, but probably more important for most use cases is that performance also being delivered reliably and dependably for a day (ish) on a single charge. The combo of those two is a massively bigger win for most people than simply a little bit of extra incremental perf Vs the last gen, or whatever.
carlmr 3y ago
If you ask me user-facing performance was always a priority. iPhones always feel snappier than Android to me. Android phones often have a noticeable lag when scrolling, the apps take longer to open, the screen freezes more often. Even with higher performing chips on some Samsung phones, the iPhone always feels faster. Most consumers don't care about how performant the chip is, but they do care about visible performance.
- ajross 3y ago
  > If you ask me user-facing performance was always a priority. Go compare a Mac in 1998 vs. a garbage-tier shopping mall Windows machine. Apple almost died for a reason.
- hooverd 3y ago
  Samsung just makes ungodly slow Android UIs. I have stock Android on my Pixel 5 and I haven't noticed any slowness.
  - joshstrange 3y ago
    That may be true but here is the issue. An iPhone is an iPhone is an iPhone for the most part, the same cannot be said for Android. I don't have a Pixel but I have a Samsung phone to test with that makes me want to pull my hair out but a similarly old iOS device doesn't. The older iOS device might be slower than a new one but it still outperforms the Samsung.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      > the same cannot be said for Android. I don't have a Pixel It's a little silly to criticize their argument, then. Android is not a uniform experience because it runs on everything. Your Raspberry Pi can boot Android with the right drivers. It certainly won't be your "iPhone is an iPhone is an iPhone" experience, but that's because the AOSP exists. It's reductive and a non-argument. Now, you also don't need to go build a fresh AOSP image or install GrapheneOS to argue in good faith. That being said, if you have to make vendors look like the boogeyman to win an online argument about cell phones, you're likely building a case that works equally well against Apple.
      - joshstrange 3y ago
        > That being said, if you have to make vendors look like the boogeyman to win an online argument about cell phones, you're likely building a case that works equally well against Apple. Samsung is the top/biggest Android manufacturer from everything I can find online and all the other non-Pixel phones are equally trashy (full of crapware, reskinned apps, etc). The Pixel is almost a rounding error in North America coming in at ~2% vs Samsung at ~30% and Apple at about ~54% [0]. I think it's perfectly fair to judge the OS based on the biggest install base. [0] https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/north-america https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/north-...
- CharlesW 3y ago
  > If you ask me user-facing performance was always a priority. You're absolutely correct, every major Apple architectural change has been motivated in large part by performance. For example, the MacUser cover introducing PowerPC was "FASTEST EVER! PowerPC Macs • Five Times Faster • Outperforms Pentium". Apple was effectively forced to move to Intel because IBM fabrication caused PowerPC to fall behind performance goals. And of course, performance continues to be a primary motivation behind the move to Apple Silicon.
  - radicaldreamer 3y ago
    Performance per watt, not pure performance.
    - CharlesW 3y ago
      That's an important part of the performance story, but Apple wouldn't have switched architectures without a clear leap in pure performance even if performance-per-watt was better. Apple waited to transition desktops/laptops to Apple Silicon until they could demonstrate a definitive performance advantage over Intel.
- kitsunesoba 3y ago
  Responsiveness definitely matters. It's something that users perceive even if they can't name it specifically. On that note, it might've just been my imagination, but I swear that OS X 10.5/10.6 had a different responsiveness profiles on PowerPC and Intel Macs. Somehow Core 2 Duo Macs that on paper and in benchmarks outstripped the single core PPC G5 Macs they replaced quite significantly on every metric felt noticeably less responsive with more frequent beachballing. Really weird.
caycep 3y ago
It's not like the Windows laptops are great on the design part either, witness all the threads complaining about Windows 11...
wmf 3y ago
Everyone will tout performance when they're ahead in performance but that's not why customers are really buying. If the iPhone was slower than Qualcomm people would still buy iPhones. Likewise with Macs.
- cubefox 3y ago
  There are simply diminishing returns from increased performance. Smartphones already feel pretty responsive for a while now, e.g. in terms of app start-up time.
joshstrange 3y ago
I disagree, the whole package is still my top priority, it's just that Apple is winning in performance (aside from GPU/graphics) and UI/UX right now. I think Apple has stumbled on UI/UX in the past fews years but I still feel they are leagues ahead of the competition. Windows and Android still drive me crazy and feel substantially worse in UI/UX than anything Apple has put out.
- LeanderK 3y ago
  my girlfriend recently had ads in the browser from microsoft urging her to use bing for a month to earn a few dollars in amazon credit. I was baffled how you can cripple the UX of your flagship product without any respect to it, and in such a cheap, tasteless way.
  - airstrike 3y ago
    so install firefox + uBlock Origin for her?
    - flangola7 3y ago
      The ads are in the browser interface itself
      - LeanderK 3y ago
        also I wasn't really talking as if there's not fix for it, but the sabotage of MS on the UX of their flagship product. It feels cheap and not pleasant to use if you're bombarded with ads and stupid cortana-stuff. I really don't like the painting of business leaders as heroes, but here it feels a little bit appropriate: I bet steve jobs would have fired you on the spot for this. And the managers under him would have never dared to do this and still don't.
  - radicaldreamer 3y ago
    The people building these things aren't using them (at least not in the standard user configuration)... or they don't have the ability to stop these things from going out.
radicaldreamer 3y ago
How has it flipped? Apple is still constantly talking about how performance isn't everything and it's about the complete package: iOS, MacOS and the accessory and app ecosystem.
NicoJuicy 3y ago
Are you comparing with similar cost devices?

xxpor 3y ago

In the mobile market though, perf can directly translate into battery life.

davnicwil 3y ago
Yeah, and it's important in the laptop market too. The top line performance of the M chips is obviously fantastic per se, but probably more important for most use cases is that performance also being delivered reliably and dependably for a day (ish) on a single charge. The combo of those two is a massively bigger win for most people than simply a little bit of extra incremental perf Vs the last gen, or whatever.

carlmr 3y ago

If you ask me user-facing performance was always a priority. iPhones always feel snappier than Android to me. Android phones often have a noticeable lag when scrolling, the apps take longer to open, the screen freezes more often. Even with higher performing chips on some Samsung phones, the iPhone always feels faster. Most consumers don't care about how performant the chip is, but they do care about visible performance.

ajross 3y ago
> If you ask me user-facing performance was always a priority. Go compare a Mac in 1998 vs. a garbage-tier shopping mall Windows machine. Apple almost died for a reason.
hooverd 3y ago
Samsung just makes ungodly slow Android UIs. I have stock Android on my Pixel 5 and I haven't noticed any slowness.
- joshstrange 3y ago
  That may be true but here is the issue. An iPhone is an iPhone is an iPhone for the most part, the same cannot be said for Android. I don't have a Pixel but I have a Samsung phone to test with that makes me want to pull my hair out but a similarly old iOS device doesn't. The older iOS device might be slower than a new one but it still outperforms the Samsung.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    > the same cannot be said for Android. I don't have a Pixel It's a little silly to criticize their argument, then. Android is not a uniform experience because it runs on everything. Your Raspberry Pi can boot Android with the right drivers. It certainly won't be your "iPhone is an iPhone is an iPhone" experience, but that's because the AOSP exists. It's reductive and a non-argument. Now, you also don't need to go build a fresh AOSP image or install GrapheneOS to argue in good faith. That being said, if you have to make vendors look like the boogeyman to win an online argument about cell phones, you're likely building a case that works equally well against Apple.
    - joshstrange 3y ago
      > That being said, if you have to make vendors look like the boogeyman to win an online argument about cell phones, you're likely building a case that works equally well against Apple. Samsung is the top/biggest Android manufacturer from everything I can find online and all the other non-Pixel phones are equally trashy (full of crapware, reskinned apps, etc). The Pixel is almost a rounding error in North America coming in at ~2% vs Samsung at ~30% and Apple at about ~54% [0]. I think it's perfectly fair to judge the OS based on the biggest install base. [0] https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/north-america https://gs.statcounter.com/vendor-market-share/mobile/north-...
CharlesW 3y ago
> If you ask me user-facing performance was always a priority. You're absolutely correct, every major Apple architectural change has been motivated in large part by performance. For example, the MacUser cover introducing PowerPC was "FASTEST EVER! PowerPC Macs • Five Times Faster • Outperforms Pentium". Apple was effectively forced to move to Intel because IBM fabrication caused PowerPC to fall behind performance goals. And of course, performance continues to be a primary motivation behind the move to Apple Silicon.
- radicaldreamer 3y ago
  Performance per watt, not pure performance.
  - CharlesW 3y ago
    That's an important part of the performance story, but Apple wouldn't have switched architectures without a clear leap in pure performance even if performance-per-watt was better. Apple waited to transition desktops/laptops to Apple Silicon until they could demonstrate a definitive performance advantage over Intel.
kitsunesoba 3y ago
Responsiveness definitely matters. It's something that users perceive even if they can't name it specifically. On that note, it might've just been my imagination, but I swear that OS X 10.5/10.6 had a different responsiveness profiles on PowerPC and Intel Macs. Somehow Core 2 Duo Macs that on paper and in benchmarks outstripped the single core PPC G5 Macs they replaced quite significantly on every metric felt noticeably less responsive with more frequent beachballing. Really weird.

caycep 3y ago

It's not like the Windows laptops are great on the design part either, witness all the threads complaining about Windows 11...

wmf 3y ago

Everyone will tout performance when they're ahead in performance but that's not why customers are really buying. If the iPhone was slower than Qualcomm people would still buy iPhones. Likewise with Macs.

cubefox 3y ago
There are simply diminishing returns from increased performance. Smartphones already feel pretty responsive for a while now, e.g. in terms of app start-up time.

joshstrange 3y ago

I disagree, the whole package is still my top priority, it's just that Apple is winning in performance (aside from GPU/graphics) and UI/UX right now. I think Apple has stumbled on UI/UX in the past fews years but I still feel they are leagues ahead of the competition. Windows and Android still drive me crazy and feel substantially worse in UI/UX than anything Apple has put out.

LeanderK 3y ago
my girlfriend recently had ads in the browser from microsoft urging her to use bing for a month to earn a few dollars in amazon credit. I was baffled how you can cripple the UX of your flagship product without any respect to it, and in such a cheap, tasteless way.
- airstrike 3y ago
  so install firefox + uBlock Origin for her?
  - flangola7 3y ago
    The ads are in the browser interface itself
    - LeanderK 3y ago
      also I wasn't really talking as if there's not fix for it, but the sabotage of MS on the UX of their flagship product. It feels cheap and not pleasant to use if you're bombarded with ads and stupid cortana-stuff. I really don't like the painting of business leaders as heroes, but here it feels a little bit appropriate: I bet steve jobs would have fired you on the spot for this. And the managers under him would have never dared to do this and still don't.
- radicaldreamer 3y ago
  The people building these things aren't using them (at least not in the standard user configuration)... or they don't have the ability to stop these things from going out.

radicaldreamer 3y ago

How has it flipped? Apple is still constantly talking about how performance isn't everything and it's about the complete package: iOS, MacOS and the accessory and app ecosystem.

NicoJuicy 3y ago

Are you comparing with similar cost devices?