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Comment by cwingrav | Hacker News Reader

I think what Apple is pushing for is computing efficiency. It still gets faster but with much less power. Focusing on performance solely would be the wrong way to evaluate these chips. https://www.tomsguide.com/news/apple-m3-chip

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I think it's a bit more nuanced than that.

There's a reason they didn't just stick an A series chip in their laptops and call it a day - they want more performance even if it comes at the cost of efficiency. It's probably better to say that Apple is pushing performance within a relatively restricted power envelope.

Just to illustrate my point - if m3 had exactly the same performance as m1, but with 1/2 the power draw, I don't think many people would have been happy even if it would have been an amazing increase in computing efficiency.

This drives me crazy. Apple plays the market like Nintendo. Pick something that no one cares about, do it better than anyone else, and make a big deal about it.

I dream of a world where instead of a marketing company becoming a top 3 tech company, a tech company would have. Wonder what they would have done for their laptop...

Or maybe this is just an inevitable outcome of capitalism/human biology where a veblen goods company will become a top player in a market.

(I have my own Google and M$ complaints too)

So Apple is the most successful company because they prioritize things that no one cares about?

I dunno, if a there was marketing company that could design the likes of the M series chips along with the mobile versions, develop a full technology stack from programming language and compiler, custom chips, through to shipping whole devices at unimaginable scale would make me wonder what technology companies were doing.

What other “tech” company really compares from a hardware perspective? Samsung? Dell? AMD? Love them or hate them, there’s no denying that Apple has serious technical chops. One day people will only hate Apple for reasonable things, today’s not that day apparently.

It's probably fairer to say "Apple builds products focused on things I don't care about."

Obviously, other people care.

Apple develops its own OS. Apple develops its own development stack, frameworks, etc. Apple develops its own CPU/GPU architecture. Apple develops its own battery architecture. Apple develops its own tooling to manufacture a lot of their products. Apple develops its own tooling to dispose off their products.

There are very few companies that have as much first party Tech in their products from start to finish.

I think Apple under prioritizes sdvanced functionality but if they’re not a Tech company than it’s hard to see what is.

Who knows... maybe they will be like Google (which I consider a tech/engineering driven org) and they'll throw away (good) products all the time just "because"?

I think Apple plays the "niche" very well, not only regarding marketing, but also from a techs view.

Considering that Apple has been significantly more innovative (tech wise) than pretty all of their competitors I’m not quite sure what this tells about them.

marketing

Not really . Or rather not only. The only two things I hate about Apple’s hardware is the lack of repairability and the price gouging for memory/storage upgrades. Otherwise they are objectively miles ahead of their competition

Of course I have no idea why am I taking the effort to respond to an edgy single word comment…

What a weird take. Literally every "tech" company is chasing Apple's silicon but you are trying to claim that they're not a tech company. Let me guess, iPhones and iPads aren't tech either, right?

no they arent lol

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