> M2's performance increases did not knock it out of the park.
I can't understand where people got their idea that M2 had to absolutely be an OMG moment. That's literally what Apple has been doing since forever: release a major upgrade, iterate on it for a few years, repeat.
> Ideally, we should be on M3 right now.
M1 was released in November 2020, less than three years ago. How the hell are we supposed to be on M3 now?
> I can't understand where people got their idea that M2 had to absolutely be an OMG moment. That's literally what Apple has been doing since forever: release a major upgrade, iterate on it for a few years, repeat.
Maybe not so much that people were expected to get their socks knocked off once again but mostly that M1 Max/Pro are more than enough for years to come for the majority of the people that got them.
Heck, I have a M1Air and a M1Max16. I can't even max it out with my current usage. Hard to justify the slight bump for the M2 given the cost in the EU. Even if M3 would double the performance and battery life would still be a hard sell.
the market for M2/3 chip machines is not those with M1s but those people who are still on the Intel machines. People don't usually replace their MacBooks annually. Most people keep them for several years.
>M1 was released in November 2020, less than three years ago. How the hell are we supposed to be on M3 now?
Marketing. Consider why Chrome and Firefox increase their major version number every release for the smallest change now.
When Intel and AMD are both bumping up their version numbers every year or two, Apple sitting on M1 for three years looks out of fashion to the simpler people.
This isn't to say Apple (nor Intel and AMD for that matter) should release new CPUs or bump the number up anyway every year, but human psychology is undeniable.
They are major version numbers, for example the latest Firefox is v111.0.1 and Chromium is v114.0.5708.0.
Yes, the most miniscule of minor changes is reflected with lower-level version numbers, but the major version number still gets bumped up for next to no reason other than marketing.
>I can't understand where people got their idea that M2 had to absolutely be an OMG moment. That's literally what Apple has been doing since forever: release a major upgrade, iterate on it for a few years, repeat.
That's right. That's part of the reason why sales fell so drastically.
>M1 was released in November 2020, less than three years ago. How the hell are we supposed to be on M3 now?
There is a lot of evidence that Apple wants to release a new M series every year. There were many reputable reports that suggests M2 was ready long before the M2 Air design was ready to go. Another piece of evidence is that the video files for the M2 Pro/Max suggests that they were ready as soon as October 2022. They were delayed by 4 months.
Ideally, the timeline should have been:
M1: Fall 2020 (uses A14 from iPhone 12)
M2: Fall 2021 (uses A15 from iPhone 13)
M3: Fall 2022 (probably would have used A16 from iPhone 14 but with delays to M2 and delays to TSMC's 3nm, it'll likely skip the A16 and go straight to A17 from iPhone 15).
The above timeline did not happen for various reasons including supply chain bottlenecks, delays to the M2 Air redesign, and 3nm delay from TSMC.
* An Apple executive said recently that they want to release a huge upgrade every year. They don't want to hold back.[0]
* M1 used A14. M2 used A15 (even though A16 was already out). This seems to suggest that Apple wants to make use of every A series iteration. The A series gets a new gen every year.
* It seems to make sense business-wise that the base M will at least get upgraded once a year. It isn't too much more effort since the iPhone funds most of the development. The base M chip goes into the following: Macbook Air 13", Macbook Air 15"(expected to come out in a few months), iPad Pro 13", iPad Pro 11", iMac, Mac Mini, iPad Air. It's valuable to update these devices once a year.
* We weren't in "normal" years. Covid, supply chain issues, work from home, gigantic demand followed by demand collapse likely contributed to delays.
I can't understand where people got their idea that M2 had to absolutely be an OMG moment. That's literally what Apple has been doing since forever: release a major upgrade, iterate on it for a few years, repeat.
> Ideally, we should be on M3 right now.
M1 was released in November 2020, less than three years ago. How the hell are we supposed to be on M3 now?