As a technical consumer I don’t know why I would want to see the actual die shots - it really doesn’t tell me anything at all.
The graphics they put on slides or marketing sites aren’t supposed to be technical reference material, usually it’s just about conveying the idea of a SoC or performance improvements, or relative sizes, or whatever.
For some people yes, for others it’s a confusing jumble of fuzzy shapes that distract them from the pertinent information. I think Apple approach of providing simplified diagrams, and also illustrative die shots (yes, they did provide die shots, so the whole premise of this discussion is stupid) was perfectly fine.
Isn't a big idea of diagrams that they aren't real so can be simpler and easier to understand? Otherwise we'd just use photos or actual schematics.
more inspiring
Most people just need to get the info so they can get on with their job and day and get home to their kids. They aren't looking to be inspired right now. That's fine.
The inquiry I am making is more general - infantilization of consumers and the idea of dumbing things down for consumers like they're blobs of meat with cash to spare.
You don't need to see the cartoonized version of it either. May be its easier as a schematic to explain? Not sure. A list of M1's features would work equally well. I think its just marketing pizzaz.
Your refusal to take a moment to think why Apple’s marketing team did this is very funny. Do you think they just throw a dart into a spinning board when making decisions like this? There’s a difference between “dumbing” things down and effectively conveying your messages. Suggesting that they include an actual die shot in their ads for general consumers is one of the most HN-esque comments I read this month.
Though there’s still the possibility that they could add it into the detailed specifications page, or perhaps even a link in the footnotes of the specifications page? Surely that would be a better match for the target audience that would care.
Apple isn't an education company so it shouldn't be surprising their marketing department doesn't worry about simplifying things for their real goals. At the end of the day the customers are blobs of meat with cash to spare and the advertisement is to change the latter part not teach the former.
Comments
As a technical consumer I don’t know why I would want to see the actual die shots - it really doesn’t tell me anything at all.
The graphics they put on slides or marketing sites aren’t supposed to be technical reference material, usually it’s just about conveying the idea of a SoC or performance improvements, or relative sizes, or whatever.
Because it's more real, and more inspiring to look at real technical material.
For some people yes, for others it’s a confusing jumble of fuzzy shapes that distract them from the pertinent information. I think Apple approach of providing simplified diagrams, and also illustrative die shots (yes, they did provide die shots, so the whole premise of this discussion is stupid) was perfectly fine.
Why is more real better for this purpose?
Isn't a big idea of diagrams that they aren't real so can be simpler and easier to understand? Otherwise we'd just use photos or actual schematics.
Most people just need to get the info so they can get on with their job and day and get home to their kids. They aren't looking to be inspired right now. That's fine.
The inquiry I am making is more general - infantilization of consumers and the idea of dumbing things down for consumers like they're blobs of meat with cash to spare.
You don't need to see the cartoonized version of it either. May be its easier as a schematic to explain? Not sure. A list of M1's features would work equally well. I think its just marketing pizzaz.
Your refusal to take a moment to think why Apple’s marketing team did this is very funny. Do you think they just throw a dart into a spinning board when making decisions like this? There’s a difference between “dumbing” things down and effectively conveying your messages. Suggesting that they include an actual die shot in their ads for general consumers is one of the most HN-esque comments I read this month.
I think the opposite. Apple has perfected marketing in a lot of ways.
They are simplifying the presentation for educating a wider audience of non-ECEs.
This is not a new phenomenon in human communication.
But we’re all just blobs of meat, that’s true. Maybe one day Apple will better tailor their marketing to sentient Bitcoin algorithms.
Though there’s still the possibility that they could add it into the detailed specifications page, or perhaps even a link in the footnotes of the specifications page? Surely that would be a better match for the target audience that would care.
There is a list of features here:
https://www.apple.com/mac/m1/
Or are you looking for more detail, like the width of the decode pipeline or depth of the reorder buffer?
I would think that a majority of software engineers don’t know what those are, fewer still would understand the significance compared other chips.
Apple isn't an education company so it shouldn't be surprising their marketing department doesn't worry about simplifying things for their real goals. At the end of the day the customers are blobs of meat with cash to spare and the advertisement is to change the latter part not teach the former.