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Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

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Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#491
post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading Infinite Games, they tell an anecdote about a Microsoft exec on a flight telling an Apple exec that the Zune was a way better portable music player than the iPod. The Apple exec was just “yup, you’re probably right” and then soon after the iPhone dropped

Actually, Microsoft came with "modern" smart phone much sooner. Actually too soon, technology wasn't there (price, computing power, size, weight, battery life). Apple never came first ... but often just at the right moment and had marketing skills to make it a new trend.

> technology wasn’t there

Until Apple developed it. Those early iPhones employed a lot of tricks to squeeze usability, battery life, and performance out of underpowered devices.

Prior smartphone attempts mostly applied PC-centric concepts to the device, it’s no surprise they ended up failing.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#494
post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been really weird reading laptop reviews over the last few months. I've seen a bunch of reviews where they have their usual bar graphs comparing a bunch of laptops, and the laptop that is at the bottom is an Apple. It's the really inexpensive Neo, of course, but even the M5 laptops are consistently beat on performance and battery life by Intel Windows laptops. I assume the M6 will take the crown back and then a…

> but even the M5 laptops are consistently beat on performance and battery life by Intel Windows laptops The real question is whether all these Intel Windows laptops spin their fans at full speed when doing absolutely nothing. That’s something I can never go back to. I do some light gaming on my M2 Pro MBP and it gets hot when trying to push 120 fps. But my Lenovo Legion (that’s now collecting the dust) is so loud I…

Yeah, as a somewhat new MacBook air user I'm also sceptical when people claim that any windows laptop is now better or at least as good as a MacBook.

I'm still traumatized by my windows laptop randomly turning on in my backpack, heating itself up and draining the battery because of windows.

Aside from that I'm now used to MacOS for my daily needs aside from gaming so windows laptop have to do a lot of work convincing me of getting back to them.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#495
post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Microsoft came with "modern" smart phone much sooner. Actually too soon, technology wasn't there (price, computing power, size, weight, battery life). Apple never came first ... but often just at the right moment and had marketing skills to make it a new trend.

I'm the opposite of an Apple fanboy (typing this on a Windows box), but this is some grade A nonsense. Sure, MS launched PDAs and phone-ish devices long ago, running Windows CE and whatnot but they were awful . It's absolute bollocks that the iPhone was a splashing success because of Apple marketing. It was a splashing success because it worked spectacularly well. Random non-tech people would randomly pull out their…

Having used a variety of pre-iPhone WinCE, Palm, Psion, etc PDAs, going purely by bullet points specs, the best WinMo devices launched in 2007 were capable and even feature-rich, but I agree the overall user experience was hobbled. Large touch-screen devices integrating phone, data and media needed a different UX and OS. MSFT's business was too platform-centric to take the strategic risk and their mindset was too incremental to make the conceptual leap.

I was at the 2007 iPhone announcement, got hands-on a prototype in the booth and had a dev unit pre-ship. As a technology strategist for a F500 ISV, my job was to assess the changing mobile device landscape. With the iPhone I think Apple deserves significant credit for two big things: the conceptual leap to a new UX/OS and going all-in on the large touch screen. Completely sacrificing both a physical keyboard or pen was bold and controversial.

While it was the right long-term vision, the reality which often gets glossed over, is the iPhone 1 didn't deliver on the vision and early adopters struggled. It wasn't until the iPhone 3G shipped 18 months later and the app store was released that the iPhone first began to slowly fulfill it's promise. I didn't daily drive an iPhone until the 3G. In recent years, I think many look back with rose-colored glasses at the iPhone launch and give Apple even more expansive credit for the "iPhone breakthrough" than the legitimate credit they justly deserve. Of the major players at the time, Apple was the only one who could make those bold choices because they didn't have existing phone products or platform agendas to preserve.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#496
post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of Mixtape, but I'm surprised to see such a weirdly contemptuous post about a video game get so much traction on HN. At a glance, critical review aggregators are showing 80+ on this game. Is there some drama or culture war issue here that I'm missing?

Yes, it's a culture war thing and the commenters here are participating in it: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/mixtape-is-at-the-ce...

Ah, well that must be it then. The stench of culture war was pretty strong in the original comment, so I'm not surprised, although I'm a bit disappointed to see it so front and center on HN (especially given that it was set off by a tiny mostly irrelevant mention in an Apple press release)!

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#497

I know, this is a bit of a meaningless comment, but it's funny in a way. Feels like late 90s again: - Xiaomi: We have matched Apple in CPU performance. - Apple: *Meep Meep...*

Seems most computer companies are still boasting that they can beat the M1 and it's like...congrats on beating a 6 year old chipset?

I don't think this is the case.

Intel Panther lake beats the M5 in GPU and multi-core performance, and is only behind in single core (and not by much). Panther Lake is also on some Windows laptops that trounce MacBook battery life (e.g., Framework 13 Pro according to Just Josh Tech medium-brightness productivity benchmarking).

The Snapdragon X2 Elite beats the M5 multi-core performance (the HP Omnibook Ultra 14 is priced identically spec-for-spec with the MacBook Pro with M5). Still behind in single core and probably graphics, but squarely in the same realm.

Both of these chips are within small deviations of the M5. We could call Intel and Qualcomm 1 year behind at best.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading Infinite Games, they tell an anecdote about a Microsoft exec on a flight telling an Apple exec that the Zune was a way better portable music player than the iPod. The Apple exec was just “yup, you’re probably right” and then soon after the iPhone dropped

To be fair, the Zune actually was a better media player than the ipod in almost every way. That wasn't a false statement. The issue was the abysmal marketing and "me too" attitude Microsoft had (and still has).

And the Zune media player was a much better media player than the other 6 Microsoft media players. It was crazy how much Microsoft invested in cannibalizing its own products--I remember they had a similar number of word processors, email clients, etc.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#500
post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Microsoft came with "modern" smart phone much sooner. Actually too soon, technology wasn't there (price, computing power, size, weight, battery life). Apple never came first ... but often just at the right moment and had marketing skills to make it a new trend.

> technology wasn’t there Until Apple developed it. Those early iPhones employed a lot of tricks to squeeze usability, battery life, and performance out of underpowered devices. Prior smartphone attempts mostly applied PC-centric concepts to the device, it’s no surprise they ended up failing.

Also, capacitative/multitouch touchscreens were ridiculously expensive until Apple made orders at a scale large enough to bring the technology costs down.
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