I think the OP is saying that it could be a mistake to focus on the processor so much when it might turn out that worthy competition is just around the corner. Apple have ever focused on processor like this before, instead opting to focus on the whole product, fit and finish, etc. Which arguably still very few rival them on even today.

Yes competitors may have worthy opponents to the M1 "just around the corner".

But do you think that Apple stopped innovating after releasing the M1 last year? Don't you think the M2 (or M1X whatever it's called) is well into design and prototyping at this point?

The broader point, I think, is that Apple has never really competed on specs before. Not meaningfully, anyway. They’ve competed on whole product. Competing on specs opens them up to new challenges.

This is like people obsessing over the amount of RAM in iPhones.

Just because it matters on Android, which is a COMPLETELY different system, doesn't mean it matters as much on iOS.

Yes, it matters a bit when switching between multiple apps, but app suspend is handled in a completely different way on iOS than on Android.

Apples to Oranges.

While the competition might have M1 competitors (perf/power) "just around the corner", Apple has the M1 out right now. You can go buy an M1 Mac today. If I need to wait until next quarter or the second half of the year to get an M1 competitor that doesn't help me much today.

> Apple have ever focused on processor like this before

Eh, I'm not sure that's true. They did with the original PPC, and also the G3 and G5.

PowerPC was also IBM and Motorola.

It's difficult to compare the Apple Silicon versus PowerPC, because the new Apple hardware is far more ambitious, the whole platform. I would expect that the memory SSD controllers are to some degree licensed from other industry players. The CPU architecture is something else again. Issues eight instructions per clock -- per core. The M1 core design has more in common with IBM mainframe POWER9 than with a typical x86 core. It's remarkable to see this design ina low end consumer device. A mobile.

But by the time "just around the corner" happens, we will be comparing it to the M2.

This has always been the line people use against Apple, at least since the days when it was no longer credible to use the "beleaguered" line on them.

There have been just so many genuine tech news articles of the form, "Future Apple Competitor Product Beats Current, Widely Successful Apple Product".

> There have been just so many genuine tech news articles of the form, "Future Apple Competitor Product Beats Current, Widely Successful Apple Product".

It's the twin brother of all the "Currently, successful Apple product feature technically existed on [not-Apple] Product years ago (even though basically nobody used it)."

People read those articles and conclude it's all marketing hype but never ask themselves why it seems to happen again and again where simply checking off the box for having a specific feature never seems to actually lead to broad adoption. And if it truly is ONLY marketing hype leading to those ecosystem effects, then maybe you should start thinking of marketing hype as a feature?

It's only "future" because Apple strongarms the whole market with their market position buying whole 5nm TSMC capacity

By “strongarms” do you mean “places the highest bid”?

A fist full of money is a strong arm isn't it?

> strongarms the whole market

I see what you did there. Really casting shade on Intel!