The arrival of the new M2 SoC has obviously been the subject of the usual orgy of superlatives from Apple. We have said here several times how much we like Apple’s strategy of creating its own chips. We have also praised the performance of the first chips. But if objectivity and curiosity are necessary, patience is sometimes lacking when we have been hearing the same formulas from Apple for years at each presentation. In addition to the overkill of superlatives, there is a growing tendency to compare carrots with turnips. It’s not only the X86 vs ARM comparison but it goes far beyond that. We dare to talk about marketing bullshit?
Where is the limit between marketing and marketing bullshit?
In the M2 presentation, several comparisons were made. Often they make the sharp and objective amateurs smile, but the problem is that at times they are very much like false advertising.
The most blatant example is the comparison of a MacBook Air M2 and a MacBook Air i5 claiming 26x better performance (for certain uses). Apple insists on figures like 15 times more performance in video editing and 26 times faster in image scaling compared to the MacBook i5. What remains of this presentation in the minds of people who are not informed, let’s be objective, is that Apple’s M2 SoC is 26 times faster than a Core i5 from Intel. But the problem is that to get there, Apple dug up a Macbook Air equipped with a Core i5-8210Y, a Dual Core CPU running at 1.6Ghz that has been retired for a while. Apple could have compared the latest “Intel” MacBook Air, equipped with an i5-1030G7 that already has 4 cores and 8 threads at 3.5 GHz… But no, the choice fell on this good old 8th generation i5, with a TDP of 7W (probably 4 to 5 times less than the M2). Let’s come to the real question: why does Apple need to do this? Its M2 seems to perform well, like other Apple Silicon chips, it will shake up the competition and move the market. But what about the end customer who has to put up with these bigger and bigger strings? This marketing without limits and without ethics will lead the competition to follow the same path: excess of superlatives, bogus comparisons, miracle graphics…We have already started to see this elsewhere than at Apple, follow my eyes.
