> No one cared (not entirely true, but for most) until Apple made power efficiency relevant. There were efficient processors prior to Apple Silicon. No one (again, exaggerating) cared until Apple made them care.
I don't think that's really true.
The major cause for the failure of the macbook was a lack of power efficiency. Intel just didn't make a performant enough low power chip to make the concept work outside of a small group of people who value portability over everything else.
But even beyond that, there have been frequent complaints of Apple's laptops running hot. Those complaints don't necessarily show up in benchmark numbers, but I've run across them many, many times.
I think he's referring specifically to the most recent machine branded simply MacBook, with no Air or Pro suffix. That was a 12" fanless notebook introduced in 2015, a few years before the MacBook Air got a Retina Display upgrade.
for all of the commenters, i'm fairly sure the macbook being referred to is the 12-inch macbook. that was absolutely a failure due to lack of a power efficient and performant cpu
I don't think that's really true.
The major cause for the failure of the macbook was a lack of power efficiency. Intel just didn't make a performant enough low power chip to make the concept work outside of a small group of people who value portability over everything else.
But even beyond that, there have been frequent complaints of Apple's laptops running hot. Those complaints don't necessarily show up in benchmark numbers, but I've run across them many, many times.