Apple Archive

Hey Apple, MHz Matters

- 2002.08.27

One of the problems Apple faces today is the processors in its machines, which currently run at less than half the clock speed of Intel processors.

As Apple itself says, clock speed is not everything. Even Intel's own processors demonstrate this - the fast Pentium IIIs were actually faster than the first Pentium 4s, even though the P4 ran at higher clock speeds. However, it has gotten to the point where a PC is currently faster than a Mac for many tasks.

In most cases, a user won't notice a speed difference between a PC and a Mac. Email isn't going to be sent faster if you're on a 2.5 GHz PC vs. a 700 MHz Mac, and browsing the Internet and downloading files won't be much different in speed. Your MP3s aren't going to sound better on a fast PC, and it won't take you any less time to type a word processing document than if you were on a 200 MHz machine.

However, advertising convinces the typical consumer that the faster the clock speed, the faster they'll be able to get their work done - even if their work is of the type that doesn't depend on the computers speed, such as word processing, spreadsheets, and email.

And that is something that Apple won't easily be able to change. Instead of spending its money running demonstrations "proving" that the Mac is faster, Apple needs to start using chips that run at clock speeds close to those of most PCs.

They don't need to do this because the current Macs are slow; they need to do this in order to convince consumers that Macs can compete with PCs in terms of speed.

How is Apple going to do this? First of all, it has to drop Motorola. Motorola doesn't seem to consider Apple a big priority and therefore does not put a great deal of time or money into supplying Apple with fast G4 processors. After Apple gets rid of them, it has a couple of options. It can work with IBM, or it can use AMD or Intel processors.

The problem with using AMD or Intel processors is that it might enable Windows to run on a Macintosh, reducing the Mac OS's market share. Apple would need to set up their computers so that only the Mac OS would install and run on these computers. However, it would only be a matter of time before someone figured out how to get Windows running on an Intel or AMD Mac.

But using an Intel/AMD processor would give Apple a huge marketing advantage - they would be able to offer a 2+ GHz Mac.

If Apple were to work with IBM, though, they would probably be able to come up with a more efficient processor - whether it would be able to compete with the clock speeds of Intel/AMD offerings is the question.

Unfortunately, it seems most people aren't looking for actual speed when buying a computer, they are looking at clock speed. Apple needs to gain market share, and one of the best ways to do this is to offer machines with higher clock speeds that can compete more directly with Windows PCs.

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