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Comment by nikolay | Hacker News Reader

The first in tech - skipping a generation in performance comparisons! M3 being always compared to M1, not M2!

They had comparisons to both.

I feel like it's Apple realizing (I mean they likely already knew it, but this is sorta publicly saying it) that people are not going to upgrade their Mac's every year like many do for iPhones. Or likely even every 2 years.

So I think the focus on Intel and M1 (but still showing M2 but just not saying it out loud) was the right call.

I wouldn't be surprised if when the M4 roles around we are still hearing about M1, but maybe they drop intel by that point.

Virtually no-one upgrades their phone every year. For the US you're looking at about 2-10% depending on which poll you believe.

Even 2% I would not call "virtually no one". 232 million iPhones were sold in 2022, 2% of that is still 4 million iPhones.

However looking at another survey of specifically iPhone users I see as high as 36%.

Going further, of those that upgrade every year how many of those are getting the highest pro models?

Or are subscribed to Apple iPhone Upgrade Program. Even if they are a lower portion of the population they are a consistent and important part of the population.

This is either to make the performance improvement bigger or to target user with m1 because they know most of their users are still using m1? (Me included with M1 pro and M1 max)

The perf difference though is still impressive compared to m2. It is bigger than the m2 > m1 upgrade

it is to target intel hold-outs.

this year’s model is this many percentage points faster than the first chance they had to ditch the intel mac, and the mental math for converting whatever they internalized to decide to hold out to a comparison against the m3 should be easy.

some early adopters will salivate, some will pull the trigger, but the holdouts should be near their breaking points. the fear of shipping dates slipping due to early adopters with fomo will drive holdouts further towards the cliff.

I think they are targeting us M1 Pro upgraders. M2 Pro/Max wasn't necessary, then AI hit, and now they had a perfect message for a perfect customer

Apple’s been doing this for a while. Hardly a first.

Charitably, its more realistic. Not many people upgrading from M2 to M3.

Also comparing it to an intel based macbook instead of intels newest offering

I noticed that... Kind of weird. But guessing for marketing copy, "60% faster!" is an easier sell than 18% or whatnot.

Apple is trying to get people to upgrade from the M1 family, not people who have recently bought a laptop with an M2 chip.

Both, and also some to the old Intel machines. This is probably more relevant for actual purchasers; approximately no-one would be going from M2 to M3.

I figure it's part marketing and also part targeting the individuals most likely to upgrade. With an M2 I'm far less likely to pull the trigger.

And Intel CPUs

Not just Intel CPUs -- old Intel CPUs in old discontinued MacBooks.

People with those Macs and the M1 are the most likely to be considering an upgrade.

This makes sense to me. Very few people are upgrading the M2 laptops they bought earlier this year. I'm finally in the market to move from Intel because visionPro dev requires Apple Silicon. Also - last Intel laptops were less than 4 years ago. Even as a power user I only upgrade every 3-5 years - regular users even less.

They compared to both in all the charts I saw. I expect most people with any interest in upgrading are on M1 or lower, so it makes sense from that POV.

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