APPLE SILICON
What, you didn’t see that coming?
I began my Medium writing career marveling about Apple silicon. Three days after purchasing an 8GB M1 Mac mini on the day it was released¹, I wrote “The Mac mini is Now Faster Than the iMac Pro”. That story included rave reviews from Six Colors, TechCrunch, The Verge, Daring Fireball, Ars Technica, and AnandTech and included my own highly favorable benchmark test results comparing the M1 Mac mini to its 2018 Intel-based predecessor.
But as Tony Stark once said, “We create our own demons.” Apple silicon woke Intel the hell up from a nearly decade long slumber. That should have been obvious with a CEO change two months after the M1 launch when Intel replaced Bob Swan with Pat Gelsinger. And it should be beyond obvious now that Intel has launched its Intel 4 process-based Core™ Ultra Processor Family (codename Meteor Lake). So last month I wrote Apple’s M3 CPUs, Nothing to See Here, assessing the state of Apple’s processor efforts relative to its competition. My conclusion: Apple’s seemingly insurmountable lead has largely evaporated.
That story generated a number of responses which up until now I have largely ignored. But one caught my eye this morning: “Not that my needs require any extreme speed, but I’m just curious what the author’s reply is to comments trashing his analysis.” All right, challenge accepted.
In the story, I mentioned that since the initial release of Apple silicon, Intel has released Tiger Lake, Alder Lake, and Raptor Lake, with Meteor Lake scheduled for launch on December 14th. The response: “Always love how Apple products are going to be trashed by something coming any day now…”. I mentioned three released processors and one a few weeks away from launch and the takeaway is that I’m promoting vaporware? I’ve been working in the industry since before Bill Gates was presented with a Golden Vaporware award by InfoWorld editor Stewart Alsop for releasing Windows 1.0 two years after announcing it. So I’m more than familiar with tech companies announcing products that will ship late or not at all. Implying that Meteor Lake was vaporware is some pretty weak sauce. And for the record, Meteor Lake did launch as scheduled on…
