Intel's Anti-Mac Ad Campaign Highlights M1 Shortcomings

[the8thark]

You know your winning when your competition moves their focus away from what their products can do and only focuses on what your products can't do.

As an aside, if you are focused on bashing the competition as least do it in a humorous and entertaining way. Example of this is the Mac vs PC ads Apple ran a while back.

 

[jeanlain]

Apple won't have anything that serves the Industry like Intel, NVIDIA and AMD does in the professional computing and graphics industry.

I don't disagree (although I would question intel's contribution to the graphics industry), but this is not the focus of intel's ad campaign.

 

[Wildkraut]

This is not true.



Not only that but apparently Apple’s GPU hardware is extremely good at software rendered light raytracing - much better than AMD/Nvidia. Not sure how useful that is to be good at but there it is.

it’s weird too, with the exception of using AMD over Nvidia Apple is generally known for prioritizing graphics for the size, weight, and power classes. If you compare Apple’s use of intel’s integrated graphics, which no we’re not very good at any level, they tended to use the best there that they could get. So I’m not sure where he’s coming from.

Sure it is true.
Name me a single Mac that had the top of the line graphic card at its release date.
The graphics cards they shipped was always 1-2 years behind. Well they were a "special" edition, but tech wise behind the rest. Apples M[n] will get its feet into plain consumer area and push ARM development, but you won't see the professional 3D and high class Game creation industry flooding over to Apple.

 

[Wildkraut]

I don't disagree (although I would question intel's contribution to the graphics industry), but this is not the focus of intel's ad campaign.

Intel wins Academy award for rendering technology - IT-Online

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded the Intel Embree ray tracing library, a component of the Intel oneAPI Rendering Toolkit, a Scientific and Technical Achievement Award. The Academy, which hosts the annual Academy Awards, recognizes Intel Embree’s ray tracing for geometric...

it-online.co.za

 

[Jimmy James]

Embarrassing

And this is just the m1 , wait until the next gen comes out - intel will go bananas !!!b🤪

This is just it. I don’t see anyone favourably comparing the M1 to an i3, for which it is a direct replacement at the same price point. The squeeze has not been squoze yet.

 

[mrothroc]

Given that you are running under Kubernetes, I wonder if you have looked at AWS’s ARM instances? For some of our workloads they are much more efficient and cheaper.

We don't currently run on AWS, we use another cloud provider. When we did our initial evaluation, AWS VMs had inconsistent performance and were more expensive than other global operators. (That was a while ago, it may have changed.) But, sure, I don't care about the silicon. I care that it runs my workload predictably.

How much of what you run in your own code, vs. licensed third party applications?

All of it is our own code. We rely on vendor-managed cloud versions of any third-party software we need.

I spent many, many years wrangling servers. They don't add any value to my business and come with substantial ongoing overhead costs and risks. Going forward, I will always choose a serverless option if it is available, especially one that is priced based on actual usage instead of fixed recurring charges.

 

[Jimmy James]

I haven’t been this excited about a new computer in over a decade. This ad only serves to validate that excitement.

 

[pshufd]

I can't speak for other buyers but I run an internet based business and pay for many many many servers. All the new servers we deploy will be AMD based due to the performance. We're currently waiting for Milan EPYC processors to launch to do a big upgrade drive this year replacing all our dual-socket Ivy Bridge-EP based XEON systems with single-socket EPYC's.

I worked on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure last year and we were buying AMD cores. We charge by the core (and RAM and Storage) and AMD just makes cores that give you better performance. I've been trying to buy a 5900x or 5950x for a while. I'm not paying scalpers for chips.

 

[panjandrum]

Well, I can't buy an M1. I'm still too dependent on Boot Camp.

Yeah, I'm so torn on this entire issue. It's so nice to see the competition in the market-place, and it's great to see the performance at the low-power-consumption that Apple is getting out of the M1 machines, but ultimately it's also USELESS to you if it can't run what you need it to run.

If I were Apple, here would be my solution: Never End-of-Life Rosetta 2 - just keep it in there essentially forever as a backwards-compatibility layer (remember; it has no performance penalty unless you use it), and then reach out to the companies building the Virtual Machines and work with them directly to get Intel-based VMs working as well as they possibly can under Rosetta 2.

Alternatively, work directly with Microsoft on getting Windows for ARM working properly on M1 Macs, both in Boot Camp and VMs that run natively. Even work with Microsoft on their Intel emulator on ARM for Windows, if that will help.

Either solution would help a significant population of Mac users who are forced to rely on Windows for a variety of productivity or enterprise software that does not now, nor ever will have, a Mac version. Would also help gamers who finally have a Mac with the GPU horsepower to run a lot of Windows titles at least acceptably well, only to be now unable to run those titles at all (unless you consider a variety of extremely kludgy and difficult solutions, all of which reduce performance considerably).

It's foolish to pretend that these needs (or wants) don't exist.

 

[Wildkraut]

I haven’t been this excited about a new computer in over a decade. This ad only serves to validate that excitement.

I haven't been excited for new computers and gadgets over 2-3 decades, regardless of the manufacturer.
I buy them for its serving purpose, and I don't care if it's an Apple or a PC running Windows or Linux/FreeBSD.

I use Apple for my Apple platform specific things.
The M1 is a nice addition because its kinda fast enough as a general purpose mobile device, and it last very long, but I also won't torture myself and try doing heavy duty stuff with it.

Heavy 3D stuff I do on my Ryzen workstation, and longer computing things I send to my servers housing in a 19" rack.

 

[cmaier]

Always curious what you cannot do on your Macintosh? Is applications that do not run, or hardware specific things? If these are applications, are they commercial or custom (things your company wrote or had someone write)? I still see some number of applications that are windows only (a shrinking number of more general ones), and many more that have moved to web versions.

Interestingly, many of the web versions have really nice iOS/iPadOS version, many of which run on Apple Silicon Macintoshes. For some of those it is actually better to run the app on the Macintosh, than the web version on Windows.

In my case, using my Mac for work is quite a pain - can’t read work emails on it, etc. Due to “security” and lack of I.T. Support. The official solution is Citrix, which is quite unpleasant. That said, I do use my Mac for work

 

[cmaier]

Apple won't have anything that serves the Industry like Intel, NVIDIA and AMD does in the professional computing and graphics industry. Hypothetically, even if they could offer that, they would never get their feet into these areas, Apple is too strict and inflexible for this. The Metal API is also nothing special, high class Games and CADCAM is far more demanding to what Apple can offer with Metal. Rosetta is a interesting example, the Apps & Games they showed on stage ran at low res, thats not comparable at all. Yeah they ran, but it's up to the user to decide if it worth the torture, for me it wouldn't.

I'm not saying their hardware suck, It's nice, as I said, I own a M1 MBA myself and I'm very satisfied with it, it last long, etc.
But it would be childish, fanboyish and very unprofessional to make a statement that Apple will crush Intel,AMD,NVIDIA like most in here do. Apples hardware is primary used in mobile and lifestyle sector.
Serving the mass is not a high class.

CADCAM works just fine on Metal. Your statement is silly.

 

[vel0city]

I've used Photoshop since version 3.0 and I don't really get that headline. I mean I use a magic trackpad to flick through Photoshop thumbnails in CoverFlow mode almost every day of the week. What am I missing here?

 

[Wildkraut]

CADCAM works just fine on Metal. Your statement is silly.

I don't see CATIA and PRO/E nor Solidworks for Macs, how you know?

 

[Internaut]

I do feel Apple is behind on games, yet it now has some increasingly credible gaming platforms. The iPad Pro has impressed me quite a bit (though playing Pathless for an hour left my iPad Pro a little on the warm side). Something like an Apple TV, with the latest A14 and fan, might possibly undercut Sony and Microsoft quite a bit, while at the same time getting close enough. This would benefit Mac now that Mac has pretty much the same basic architecture.

 

[robertosh]

So this is worst than we think! What a disaster !! I don’t know what Intel wants to get from this... Switching to PC to play rocket league ? That’s really weak, and if needed I can play through GeForce now on Mac 😂

I hope this makes Apple to accelerate the transition to silicon. It’s really unrespectful

 

[Alan Wynn]

Yeah, I'm so torn on this entire issue. It's so nice to see the competition in the market-place, and it's great to see the performance at the low-power-consumption that Apple is getting out of the M1 machines, but ultimately it's also USELESS to you if it can't run what you need it to run.

That is true. However, less and less stuff that most users need is Windows only.

If I were Apple, here would be my solution: Never End-of-Life Rosetta 2 - just keep it in there essentially forever as a backwards-compatibility layer (remember; it has no performance penalty unless you use it), and then reach out to the companies building the Virtual Machines and work with them directly to get Intel-based VMs working as well as they possibly can under Rosetta 2.

I would do the opposite. After the last X86-64 Macintosh ships, I would announce a date certain that Rosetta will be going away. I would want people transitioning to Apple Silicon as fast as possible. For Linux VMs, Arm versions will be available quickly. For Windows, that will really depend on what Microsoft does.

Alternatively, work directly with Microsoft on getting Windows for ARM working properly on M1 Macs, both in Boot Camp and VMs that run natively. Even work with Microsoft on their Intel emulator on ARM for Windows, if that will help.

Again, it is in Apple’s interest to only support Windows under macOS. The goal should be to get people to use macOS as their primary system and Windows as little as possible. Long transitions just slow things down. How long after the iMac shipped were PCs still shipping with PS/2 keyboards and mice as their default option? I am glad that Apple has eliminated the USB A ports on their laptops as it encourages the transition to USB-C/Thunderbolt 3.

Either solution would help a significant population of Mac users who are forced to rely on Windows for a variety of productivity or enterprise software that does not now, nor ever will have, a Mac version.

It is a small percentage (under 10% according to most estimates), and the way to get it to shrink faster is to make it clear that there is a fixed time period in which one make the transition. From what I see, most enterprise software has moved to the Web and/or iOS/iPadOS. Many of those enterprise iOS/iPadOS apps run on Apple Silicon and provide a better experience than the web version. Making an inferior solution easier only it harder to get to the superior option (native or web-based versions of all needed apps).

Would also help gamers who finally have a Mac with the GPU horsepower to run a lot of Windows titles at least acceptably well, only to be now unable to run those titles at all (unless you consider a variety of extremely kludgy and difficult solutions, all of which reduce performance considerably).

The only way a meaningful number of people are going to buy Macintosh systems for gaming is for games to be available for macOS. The way that is most likely to happen is for Apple to release an AppleTV that is competitive for gaming maybe even bundled with a gaming controller (first party or not). Games released for that platform could trivially be released for Apple Silicon Macintoshes as well as for iPads.

It makes no sense for Microsoft to work to optimize DirectX for Apple Silicon, as that only makes their competitor’s machines more competitive. It makes sense for them to offer a reasonable version of Windows on Arm for an Apple Silicon VM, but not much more than that.

It's foolish to pretend that these needs (or wants) don't exist.

No one has to pretend they do not exist, however, supporting them in the way you suggest is the wrong solution and makes it least likely that the Macintosh platform will grow enough to be a real competitor.

 

[farewelwilliams]

ROFL! Yeah "Go Mac" sure, I have a M1 and like it, but this made me almost spit out my coffee...

Go PC:

Go Mac:

lol "Go Mac" bwahahah I'm still laughing...

Someone got super defensive 🤣

But did you know:

- Metahumans is a browser tool which will run on a Mac
- Unreal Engine is primarily accelerated thanks to GPUs (which current Mac Pros have plenty of juice in them to run), not CPUs which is what the joke is referring to (more specifically Intel, as AMD is doing wonders for the PC)
- Unreal Engine on macOS is still supported by Epic Games

Why you chose the worst example for your argument of choosing a PC over a Mac is beyond me. You could have selected the most popular games on PC and chose the worst game that runs on a Mac and that would have worked much better but you couldn’t even do that. 🤣

Anyways enjoy your coffee. I’m done with you 👋

 

[Wildkraut]

So this is worst than we think! What a disaster !! I don’t know what Intel wants to get from this... Switching to PC to play rocket league ? That’s really weak, and if needed I can play through GeForce now on Mac 😂

I hope this makes Apple to accelerate the transition to silicon. It’s really unrespectful

Pure business, as Apple kept doing in the past with their PowerPC CPU and its irreproducible stats, and "suddenly" they changed to Intel.

Do you expect a company to say "Okay guys, the other company has currently a better SoC, let us stop now, fire 100k people, and start insolvency, we give up!" ?

For Apple it's pure business and business control, they won't be better than Intel,AMD,NVIDIA, but it will serve their purpose well. In addition to this, more money will be left in their pockets.
This will be always a tug of war, and catch me if you can game.

Marketing is marketing, even Craig makes fun of their marketing.

 

[cmaier]

I don't see CATIA and PRO/E nor Solidworks for Macs, how you know?

Because I write CAD software, use CAD software all the time, and it works fine with metal. There are lots of CAD, EDA, and other CAM tools that support Mac. Those that do not don’t support it for reasons other than technical - they simply find the potential audience too small.

 

[GMacR]

Looks like Intel is bringing back the "I'm A Mac. I'm A PC." commercials. And being PC Guy. Sure seems like desperation... touting PC-only games, using your thumb.....?

 

[Oceanwaves]

Intel , Apple & Tesla should focus on #Holograms , the next step after Augmented Reality , to control & direct photons , as well as magnetic gravitation to start loading up those photons in motion.
Ideally #Congress makes sure @PGelsinger @tim_cook @elonmusk,etc., get full support so Foundries in USA from Intel , GlobalFoundries, develop the best Processors possible & the best VTOL solutions or we are toast as the " most powerful Economy in the World " , China is going to get our breakfast ,lunch & dinner.
Intel & Apple have almost all the hardware needed for holograms , they just need to work on software & photons management. Holograms is the next frontier in entertainment & information, in my opinion.

 

[Alan Wynn]

I don't see CATIA and PRO/E nor Solidworks for Macs, how you know?

Because products like Octane X, Cinema 4D, AutoCAD and others with more demanding requirements work fine with metal. That those companies have never bothered to port, has nothing to do with limitations in Metal and everything to do with their perceived market dynamics.

 

[PC_LOADLTR]

those are really bad ads... they could have just talked to people using Macs to get better digs on performance. Looking forward to finally upgrading to the M1

 

[rlhamil]

("bullsh__" disguised as cough) Intel is not making the most of 10nm yet; but thanks to TSMC, the M1 is at 5nm (and thanks to Apple, has a very effective design).

Anyone can cherry-pick for comparisons; Intel is carrying that quite a bit further than Apple did; indeed, a lot of the comparisons in Apple's favor were made by reviewers, rather than Apple themselves.

My main wish list items for Apple silicon would be (a) support for much more RAM (64GB for starters - and no stories about how it uses it better; sometimes you STILL want more), and (b) a well-supported Windows for Boot Camp-like and/or VM use (and with its own Intel emulation for apps not available in ARM versions) for those apps that aren't available natively for Mac. This would IMO be very desirable for a high-end MacBook Pro, and mandatory for some future Mac Pro monster.

Oh, and not so much from Apple themselves, but both a way to run Intel OS guests (those not ported to ARM) in emulation, as well as OS's (like Linux) available in ARM versions in virtualization. That way, it's possible to port, develop, build, and/or test for a whole bunch of environments on a single physical system. (Yes, I do recall a preview of ARM Windows on Parallels for the M1 systems; when it's product grade, that'll be a good part of what I'd want, but not all of it.)