Apple, please, I'm begging you, stop comparing your best products to years-old tech as a flex

It's Apple Mac merchandise motorboat week, which intends it's clip for my yearly Airing of Grievances complete Apple's Mac marketing; and specifically, this clip around, its boast that nan latest Mac mini is substantially faster than nan 2018 Mac mini, nan past pinch an Intel Core processor.

The caller Apple M4 spot is simply a state-of-the-art system-on-a-chip, built utilizing TSMC's 3nm process node, and it will apt beryllium capable to tally circles astir a batch of nan best desktop PCs connected nan marketplace erstwhile it goes connected waste adjacent week.

And truthful it goes without saying that Apple's M4-powered Mac mini is going to perfectly wallop nan heckin' daylights retired of a mini PC from six years ago. How is that moreover a question?

But Apple's insistence connected comparing its latest chips and Mac products to a several-year-old ancestor isn't conscionable silly, it's borderline malpractice.

The 2018 Mac mini and nan latest type aren't moreover adjacent to being successful nan aforesaid league

For starters, let's comparison nan processor specs of nan 2018 Mac mini vs 2024 Mac mini:

As you tin see, nan 2018 Mac mini conscionable isn't comparable to nan latest 2024 Mac mini successful position of specs. It's conscionable not.

And saying that you tin get 13.3x amended capacity connected an M4 Mac mini compared to 1 pinch a processor six generations retired of day that isn't moreover being produced anymore is for illustration a afloat grown big boasting that they're taller than a toddler.

The advancements that person been made complete nan intervening six years betwixt these 2 devices are wholly valid to talk arsenic an world matter, but arsenic a trading matter it's conscionable disingenuous astatine this point.

Now, galore will constituent retired that Apple is talking to owners of nan 2018 Mac mini to fto them cognize really overmuch amended capacity they'll get pinch nan caller 2024 model. Sure, location are surely those who haven't made nan jump yet, but aft six years, these users cognize amended than anyone that their hardware isn't keeping up, and person already been primed by their ain acquisition to want to upgrade.

The only different imaginable logic to dunk connected nan 2018 Mac mini for illustration this is to entice much Mac users distant from Intel-based chips wholly successful bid to destruct nan request to support x86 architecture connected nan package broadside of things. That's a wholly valid reason, but Apple could simply extremity supporting Intel-based Macs (after an due announcement period, of course), which would punctual users to upgrade from these older devices.

But that's besides not really what's happening here.

Apple has a estimation for fuzzy claims astir capacity gains

There's nary mobility that nan Apple M4 SoC is simply a powerful chip, and it whitethorn moreover put competing Intel and AMD offerings to shame (though Intel Core Ultra 200- and AMD Ryzen AI 300-series chips look for illustration very superior threats to Apple's dominance).

But let's besides beryllium clear, it won't beryllium that overmuch amended than nan Apple M3, and saying that thing gets 10-12% amended capacity conscionable isn't Apple's thing. Not erstwhile Apple tin brag that nan caller Mac mini "[e]nhances photos pinch up to 33x faster image upscaling capacity successful Photomator."

I'm duly impressed, particularly considering that an 8th-gen Intel spot tin moreover run Photomator successful 2024. What are we doing here?

Apple perpetually uses these very non-standard capacity metrics that nary 1 other moreover tests for, making it difficult to judge nan capacity for yourself astatine a glimpse – spot also: bragging astir nan Mac mini M4's 1.7x faster Excel look calculations than nan M1 Mac mini, besides cited successful its property merchandise announcing nan caller model. How overmuch faster is it than a competing Intel Core Ultra 5 astatine nan aforesaid task? Who tin opportunity – and that's benignant of nan point.

The worst portion of each this is that it's truthful wholly unnecessary

Why Apple's property merchandise has maine catching nan vapors complete present is that Apple does not request to do this. It does not request to opportunity it's sewage nan "world's fastest CPU core" while burying successful a footnote that this declare is based connected testing "using shipping competitory systems and prime industry-standard benchmarks".

Meanwhile, I tin show you that nan Apple M4 spot successful nan iPad Pro scored an mean of 3,700 points successful Single Core capacity connected Geekbench 6.3, compared to nan Intel Core Ultra 7 258V successful nan Acer Swift 14 AI, which scores a 2,753 connected that aforesaid benchmark. That puts nan M4 spot arsenic overmuch arsenic 34% faster than Intel's mobile workhorse.

Apple doesn't request to hide nan value of its products down a rose-colored wall of trading gimmickry; but for immoderate reason, it insists connected doing truthful erstwhile its products are demonstrably and consistently immoderate of nan champion PCs, laptops, and processors connected nan planet. It's maddening.

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