Hasn't the guy spent 90% of his career bashing Google/Android for everything under the sun and now goes to work for the very company he's attacked?
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Rene Ritchie.. the voice of reason
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I dismiss almost all of these benchmarks too, simply because I don’t do video editing in my workflow. Unfortunately, Apple designed the Mac with one thing in mind: video editing. And dedicates large die area for that, alongside neural engine, instead of CPU. Since YouTubers do video editing daily, their test naturally involves them. Hardware unboxed has a bit of broader testing suites not just limited to video editing.
You feel there’s no value in knowing the 256GB M2 SSD is substantially slower than the M1?
I care about your post more than his new role. 🤣
If you don’t want to know, then why even bother arguing? Just buy the thing already. Ignorance is bliss.
You do what makes you money at that point in time. Integrity and consistency don’t matter in today’s world. You simply go with whoever pays you money, or give you free stuff, even if you didn’t like them before.
I think it might have been the same.
Free Apple review units = good
Money = good.
So I guess there's actual consistency there....
I agree they should do tests of more regular apps. It's not hard to create a big Office doc with lots of text, images, formulas, charts for Excel etc. Then also make a big Excel sheet. Those tests should also be done along with the regular stuff.
I mean yes you might not use Adobe and FCPX, but lots of people do.
I think what happened here is Apple just never came calling for Rene in an official capacity. Google did and it probably was a lucrative offer to pass up. Serenity Cadwell who he use to work with iMore got hired there. The next logical reasoning was that Rene would eventually join too. This is all speculation on my part though. But Rene would have been such a right fit for Apple from a PR perspective. He knows how to really interact with the general public, commands social media. But again, Apple just never came calling. Thats unfortunate, because its Apple’s loss. Hopefully, joining Google might over time progress to joining Apple. Ultimately, though, it says a lot about integrity and how money speaks. Was Rene really a passionate Apple fanatic? But none of these YouTubers really are. iJustine who claims to be Apple fanatic has obviously been bought by Microsoft to OMG their products.
Another thing I want to point out, Google seems to dangling a lot of money to pick off people in the influencer crowd; Dieter Bohn comes to mind. I could see Google offering MKBHD a billion to become like an company official tech channel. He still does what he does, except he’s Google owned.
Nothing nice about it, just proves his point. Rene is right, of course, but there is always a group of toxic people who really don’t think they are toxic and vociferously push back on any mention of toxicity. See, “they are not toxic, they just want to point out, as customers, that they are entitled to….” whatever they think they are entitled to.
For the rest of us, this is what we mean when we say “toxic behaviour”. Benchmarks are not stupid, but waaaay to much emphasis is put on them and not actual usage. And every new product launch is a “-gate”, or “outrageous” or “Tim-Cook-should-be-fired-for-this-and-Steve-is-rolling-in-his-grave” for some people, which actually hides genuine concerns and issues behind a wall of unrealistic expectations of these self-proclaimed “not toxic” people.
So? People sell drama and people buy drama. This is not toxicity, just market economy, and if one is not into drama they do not have to take any of this seriously. This is all a performance anyway, reading too much into it makes no sense. They can just get the information I find useful and leave the rest of that, follow the ones who they think give useful information and not follow those who are selling more sensentionalism than information. It seems others like also the drama, who are we to say what one should like or not to like. And calling those one disagrees with or does not like their ways "toxic" just because of it sounds, well, that it could be itself toxic.
No one thinks "I am toxic", there's always a justification. Toxicity comes from the way people talk, not the themes they discuss. And yes, I agree people buy drama - this is why we have so much of it.
I'm not calling people who disagree toxic, it's not the act of disagreeing that's toxic. It's over the top emotional and overblown reactions towards things that may or may not deserve criticism.
For example - the SSD issue. I think this warrants criticism. But it's one thing to be critical, it's other to be obnoxious about it.
Criticism:
"Unfortunately, the new Air base model actually has slower SSD speed than the previous model. This sucks."
Toxic behavior:
"Greedy Apple and bean counter Tim do this COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE thing and of course, the shills and fanboys eat it up, they would buy a turd if it had an Apple logo!"
I hope you see the difference.
Toxic = hurting feelings of people that can't handle criticism of Apple, its people, or customers. It's a way to clean up people's opinions and make platforms like this echo chambers. Drop the T word and posts you don't like dissappear. It's a way to avoid confronting the reality of a situation from another person's (sometimes irrational or over dramatic) perspective. The use of the word Toxic in itself in this context is Toxic. We need to discuss and listen to all view points and tolerate them so all perspectives are on the table. That is how conversations work. If people can't handle harsh criticism of a company and its people, we are in trouble.
Toxic = being rude and agressive towards people with different opinions and then equating it to "hurting feelings of people that can't handle criticism of Apple". Also, if this place is an echo chamber, I don't think I'm reading the same forum as you.
Rene's next video: "Why the Google Pixel DESTROYS the iPhone" followed by "Why comparing the Pixel to other phones is TOXIC"
It’s also very toxic to know in which area a new machine is worse than your current one with facts / measurements. You must base your buying decisions pure on emotions.
Most people buy on emotions, especially the Apple fan base. Emotions is how Apple sells so many of its products. Don't under estimate emotions. There are few people that really care that the MacBook Pro is faster than the MacBook or the last model...they care that it looks "cute in starlight" or "now my friends will know how I am a big deal". The only reason anyone is talking about benchmarks is because people like Rene use them to make videos so they can make $. The average user does not care about SSD speed. I am also willing to bet the ones making the biggest fuss really don't care beyond having something to talk about. It just doesn't matter to average Joe Consumer. I bet less than 10% of this forum actually does anything critical enough to matter. It's just something to talk about, complain about, and so some can feel like part of something. Out of all the people I know ( a lot tech engineers)...none of them give 2 apples about SSD speed on their MacBook. They just care that it works and gets the job done. I don't care either. It's just something for nerds to nerd about. Which is fine. But don't pretend the general public and the majority of Apple's customers base buying on facts and measurements.....you will be really really disappointed.
Nope, my M1 doesn’t throttle - at all - while I’m doing a build with ALL CPUs hitting 99% for those 20 minutes. This is not dissimilar from YouTube workload tests which were also primarily CPU and show throttling begin at just 5 minutes.
Nevertheless, Max Tech has NEVER stated the 2nd part of your sentence or called Cook "bean counter", he only stated "UNACCEPTABLE". Prolly he has also added "COMPLETELY", dunno. But definitely he was not as toxic as many (incl. Ritchie) state.
I hope the 2nd generation Rene Ritchie is less buggy and judgmental of how people decide to spend their hard earned money.
I've seen similar sentiments from a few reviewers over the last week or so (Jason Snell, The Verge & CNET I think) which have all said that benchmarks have their place, but for a machine like the Air, they really don't tell the whole story. Context is everything, but its often ignored or lost in amongst the hunt for views/clicks/listens.