I can't understand where people got their idea that M2 had to absolutely be an OMG moment. That's literally what Apple has been doing since forever: release a major upgrade, iterate on it for a few years, repeat.
> Ideally, we should be on M3 right now.
M1 was released in November 2020, less than three years ago. How the hell are we supposed to be on M3 now?
Maybe not so much that people were expected to get their socks knocked off once again but mostly that M1 Max/Pro are more than enough for years to come for the majority of the people that got them.
Heck, I have a M1Air and a M1Max16. I can't even max it out with my current usage. Hard to justify the slight bump for the M2 given the cost in the EU. Even if M3 would double the performance and battery life would still be a hard sell.
Marketing. Consider why Chrome and Firefox increase their major version number every release for the smallest change now.
When Intel and AMD are both bumping up their version numbers every year or two, Apple sitting on M1 for three years looks out of fashion to the simpler people.
This isn't to say Apple (nor Intel and AMD for that matter) should release new CPUs or bump the number up anyway every year, but human psychology is undeniable.
But to answer the question: Yes. "Bigger number better" is how most people compare things.
Yes, the most miniscule of minor changes is reflected with lower-level version numbers, but the major version number still gets bumped up for next to no reason other than marketing.
That's right. That's part of the reason why sales fell so drastically.
>M1 was released in November 2020, less than three years ago. How the hell are we supposed to be on M3 now?
There is a lot of evidence that Apple wants to release a new M series every year. There were many reputable reports that suggests M2 was ready long before the M2 Air design was ready to go. Another piece of evidence is that the video files for the M2 Pro/Max suggests that they were ready as soon as October 2022. They were delayed by 4 months.
Ideally, the timeline should have been:
M1: Fall 2020 (uses A14 from iPhone 12)
M2: Fall 2021 (uses A15 from iPhone 13)
M3: Fall 2022 (probably would have used A16 from iPhone 14 but with delays to M2 and delays to TSMC's 3nm, it'll likely skip the A16 and go straight to A17 from iPhone 15).
The above timeline did not happen for various reasons including supply chain bottlenecks, delays to the M2 Air redesign, and 3nm delay from TSMC.