What Is Linus's Grievance With Apple Branding?

[AngelaHornung]

Warning: I'm not saying he is right or wrong, I just genuinely don't understand and am trying to come to a better understanding. This is not an attack, I know he likes hamburgers and hotdogs. lol I'm just dumb and don't quite understand what he's saying. 

 

So I listen to the WAN show multiple times a week (late to the game so catching up) and one of the episodes I'm catching up on is titled Oh Twitch ...... - WAN Show June 16, 2023. In this episode there is a topic where he discusses Intel's up and coming (now current) branding and compares the confusion to how Apple brands their products, particular the Mac line up. Perhaps I'm wicked bias considering I'm coming from the Apple eco-system but what exactly is the critique, I'm having difficulty following (please I'm just trying to understand, I'm curious, this is not an attack, I'm not saying he's wrong, honestly he's probably right, I just have square brain). 

 

The year is the year the device was manufactured as Apple tends to give devices 7 years of support and has little to do with the chip inside of them. The chip itself is now generational (M1, M2, M3, etc), there are a few different tiers of each M series chip (baseline, Pro, Ultra, etc). Perhaps I'm just used to this and its second nature? Also I'm not sure I see the issue with the Core Ultra branding when compared with the i7 branding. Neither inherently present what generation and the Core X vs Core Ultra X if I understand is their like i5 vs i5 Xtreme (used to rock an i5 Xtreme back in the day). 

 

So if any of ya'll could clear it up I'd appreciate it a lot!  

[TetraSky]

He's not talking about iphones in that particular segment if I remember.

It's about things like the Mac Pro or the Macbook. Where every generation is just "mac pro" or "macbook"

 

It's not easily identifiable unless you look at specs and even then you might need : 

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/102887

To even manage to properly identify it. Apple knows it's an issue. Otherwise they wouldn't have a literal page to identify your mac pro model. But they don't care.

 

It's confusing branding for no reason instead of having unique and easy to understand branding. There was no reason for Intel to do away with the Core branding, a well known and understood branding until now in favor of a longer more ridiculous branding. The ultra adds nothing. 

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, AngelaHornung said:

Warning: I'm not saying he is right or wrong, I just genuinely don't understand and am trying to come to a better understanding. This is not an attack, I know he likes hamburgers and hotdogs. lol I'm just dumb and don't quite understand what he's saying. 

 

So I listen to the WAN show multiple times a week (late to the game so catching up) and one of the episodes I'm catching up on is titled Oh Twitch ...... - WAN Show June 16, 2023. In this episode there is a topic where he discusses Intel's up and coming (now current) branding and compares the confusion to how Apple brands their products, particular the Mac line up. Perhaps I'm wicked bias considering I'm coming from the Apple eco-system but what exactly is the critique, I'm having difficulty following (please I'm just trying to understand, I'm curious, this is not an attack, I'm not saying he's wrong, honestly he's probably right, I just have square brain). 

 

The year is the year the device was manufactured as Apple tends to give devices 7 years of support and has little to do with the chip inside of them. The chip itself is now generational (M1, M2, M3, etc), there are a few different tiers of each M series chip (baseline, Pro, Ultra, etc). Perhaps I'm just used to this and its second nature? Also I'm not sure I see the issue with the Core Ultra branding when compared with the i7 branding. Neither inherently present what generation and the Core X vs Core Ultra X if I understand is their like i5 vs i5 Xtreme (used to rock an i5 Xtreme back in the day). 

 

So if any of ya'll could clear it up I'd appreciate it a lot!  

His problem was something that I ran into often when fixing/upgrading my macbook (a lemon of a machine). It was just sold to me as "macbook". Every year they would refresh/change "macbook" and everytime I wanted to find information or parts for mine I would have to do this dance of when my "macbook" was made. (It was a "macbook unibody late 2009" - not to be confused as a mid or early 2009)

 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/103257

[saintlouisbagels]

Time-code for reader. (1:00:03)

I'm confused if you actually listened to the part of the WAN Show you're talking about. He specifically pointed out the iPads and I totally agree. I remember my Dad purchasing an iPad 3 and I was utterly confused where on the device or on the box that indicated it was a 3 and not a 2. (yes, I know you can look at General > Settings)

 

I fucking hate the Mac naming system.

Are you talking about the M1 Macs, or are you talking about the M1 Max? Oh, you want the Macbook Pro M1, or do you mean the Macbook Pro M1 Pro? Pro M1 Max? Is that a new iPhone?

[AngelaHornung]

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

He's not talking about iphones in that particular segment if I remember.

It's about things like the Mac Pro or the Macbook. Where every generation is just "mac pro" or "macbook"

 

It's not easily identifiable unless you look at specs and even then you might need : 

https://support.apple.com/en-ca/102887

To even manage to properly identify it. Apple knows it's an issue. Otherwise they wouldn't have a literal page to identify your mac pro model. But they don't care.

 

It's confusing branding for no reason instead of having unique and easy to understand branding. There was no reason for Intel to do away with the Core branding, a well known and understood branding until now in favor of a longer more ridiculous branding. The ultra adds nothing. 

So the issue is that there is no discernible way to determine the product's specs by a unique identifier in the name, correct? Like you have to go into the system to determine what exactly it is or look up its serial number on the bottom of the chassis?

[AngelaHornung]

51 minutes ago, saintlouisbagels said:

Time-code for reader. (1:00:03)

I'm confused if you actually listened to the part of the WAN Show you're talking about. He specifically pointed out the iPads and I totally agree. I remember my Dad purchasing an iPad 3 and I was utterly confused where on the device or on the box that indicated it was a 3 and not a 2. (yes, I know you can look at General > Settings)

 

I fucking hate the Mac naming system.

Are you talking about the M1 Macs, or are you talking about the M1 Max? Oh, you want the Macbook Pro M1, or do you mean the Macbook Pro M1 Pro? Pro M1 Max? Is that a new iPhone?

I did listen to it but my brain wasn't quite catching on to what he was bringing up. It is late where I'm at and I've been doing Integrals all day for college so perhaps my brain is just busted atm! XD I believe I understand the critique and quite frankly I think it's very valid. Though I'll admit likely due to personal bias due to my personal experiences it has yet to be an issue with me personally. But I can totally see someone finding that confusing. 

[Needfuldoer]

1 hour ago, TetraSky said:

It's about things like the Mac Pro or the Macbook. Where every generation is just "mac pro" or "macbook"

 

Warning: This spoiler box contains the unhinged rambling of a 90s-era Mac fan. Viewer discretion is advised.

Spoiler

Apple's current Mac naming scheme is a continuation of the overcompensation they did in the late 90s after Steve Jobs came back. Before then, their naming scheme was a nearly incomprehensible mess.

 

They sold the same hardware under a dozen (or more) model numbers, depending on what market they aimed for and which retailers they went to. (LCs sold directly to education, Quadras to mail-order B2B resellers, Performas to big box stores for consumers.) Sometimes the model number on the case changed depending on the included software bundle.

 

Power Mac / Performa model numbers were a complete joke. The 68k Quadra 610 lent its case to the Power Mac / Performa 6100. The upgraded version of that should be the 6200, right? No, that's the PowerPC version of the Quadra 630. Then the 6300 was introduced as the follow-up to the 6200. The next version of that chassis should be the 6400, right? Nope! That's a tower with a built-in subwoofer, but they put the 6400 motherboard into a 6300 chassis as the 6360. The 6500 was an upgraded tower, but that board never made it into a 630-style desktop chassis.

 

They had the Power Mac 7200 with a soldered processor, which begat the 7500 with its processor on a removable daughterboard. The 7600 was identical to the 7500, except it came with better processors. Then came the 7300, so numbered because it was a "joint replacement" for both the 7200 and 7600. It was another 7500 with even faster processors, but lacked the video capture hardware. Yes, the replacement/subsequent model had a lower model number.

 

Then Steve came back and started pruning the lineup. No more Performas, no more model numbers. The replacement for the Power Macs 7300, 8600, and 9600 would be the beige Power Mac G3 line, which had different processors and "personality cards" as options but were built around the same bones. Performas were replaced by the iMac, and low end PowerBooks were replaced by the iBook.

 

The PowerBook G3 was probably the first sign of trouble to come from this model. First there was the "Kanga" PowerBook G3, basically a PowerBook 3400c with a G3 processor grafted onto it, released as a stopgap to get a G3 portable on the market ASAP. Then the "Wallstreet" G3s came out, which were a ground-up redesign. They followed the same mix-and-match philosophy as the Power Mac G3, where the same basic machine could be ordered with different displays and processors. Then the "Lombard" or "bronze" PowerBook G3s replaced the Wallstreets. They were slimmer, lighter, and faster, but incompatible with some accessories. Finally the "Pismo" PowerBook G3 replaced the Lombard/bronze, which were faster still and replaced SCSI with FireWire. They looked almost identical to the Lombard/bronze and were compatible with the same accessories. "Kanga", "Wallstreet", "Lombard", and "Pismo" were all just codenames that some of the enthusiast press glommed onto though, Apple themselves marketed all these different machines as the "PowerBook G3". 

 

Then the iMac started evolving, but kept the same marketing model name. The original became known as the "Bondi" iMac, after its color, when the fruit-colored ones came out. Then the slot loaders were released, and evolved with different shell colors and patterns. (Yes, they sold iMac G3s with blue Dalmatian spots and 60s throwback flower patterns.) These were generally named after their colors, or by which year they were released, but again Apple called them all the "iMac G3".

 

Even the Power Mac wasn't safe, because the beige G3 was replaced by the curvy "Blue and White" G3 tower. 

 

 

Then came the G4.

 

The iMac made it through the G4 era mostly unscathed (it was redesigned into the "LCD on a stick", but they're all pretty much the same), but it was the Power Mac's turn to go off the rails. First there was the "Yikes" G4, which had the same motherboard as the blue-and-white G3 but with a different CPU daughterboard. This was marketed alongside the "Sawtooth" G4, which looked identical from the outside but had a completely redesigned motherboard that took different processor cards and included AGP for the first time. Then came the "Gigabit Ethernet" G4, which as the name implies was a Sawtooth with Gigabit Ethernet on the motherboard. Then came the "Digital Audio" G4, which had digital audio output and a faster front-side bus. The case got facelifted and processors got a speed bump, making the "Quicksilver" G4. The next speed bump was the "Mirrored Drive Door" G4, so named because the optical drive doors were shiny. Then a refresh of the MDD G4 dropped official support for Mac OS 9, so the original MDD was re-released alongside the refreshed MDD G4 to fill the niche needs of media professionals who needed software that hadn't been natively ported to Mac OS X yet and didn't run properly inside Classic (the OS 9 compatibility layer).

 

So there was a time in the early 2000s where software like Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro listed their system requirements with things like "Power Macintosh with an 867 mhz or faster G4 processor" in an attempt to differentiate between all the "Power Mac G4"s.

 

G5s were relatively calm, even if the Power Mac G5s came in a couple different configurations. (And the rereleased MDD G4 overlapped it for a while, since the G5 couldn't boot OS 9 at all.)

 

Then the G5s evolved into the Intel Macs everyone should be familiar with today, vague model differentiation and all.

 

TL;DR: Apple used to call the same machine a billion different model numbers. Then Steve Jobs came back and told them that was stupid, and massively oversimplified their naming convention. Now they call a billion different machines the same names, which is an equal but opposite kind of stupid, but at least now we can differentiate by model year.

 

25 minutes ago, AngelaHornung said:

So the issue is that there is no discernible way to determine the product's specs by a unique identifier in the name, correct? Like you have to go into the system to determine what exactly it is or look up its serial number on the bottom of the chassis?

Correct. Factory specs are usually printed on a label somewhere, but the marketing name doesn't tell you by itself.

 

That's one thing the Power Mac era got right: the clock speed of the processor inside was on the front of the case. The Power Mac 7600/132 had a 132 mhz PowerPC 604 processor inside. The Power Mac 6500/275 had a 275 mhz PowerPC 603ev inside.

 

Of course that system wasn't perfect either. It was up to the user to understand that a 275 mhz 603ev wasn't necessarily twice as fast as a 132 mhz PowerPC 604, but I feel another ramble coming on so I'll just leave it at that...

[2dfx]

Ahh the good old days.

 

While they did not make the 6500 into an LC 630 style case, I remember it was a direct fit for my lowly Performa 6360.  Put the 6500 motherboard in its place and it was a decent performer, ha.

 

The 6360 was easily the worst Mac I've ever owned.

[Kisai]

2 hours ago, AngelaHornung said:

So the issue is that there is no discernible way to determine the product's specs by a unique identifier in the name, correct? Like you have to go into the system to determine what exactly it is or look up its serial number on the bottom of the chassis?

The problem is that it's difficult to tell from a photo "what" it is. All the iPads look identical from the front, and the back unless Apple changes the camera configuration. The only way to verify what model it is from the software (because it could have a cell radio, or it could not, it could have any configuration of storage as well.)

 

The iPhone's are all going to have the cellular radio, but it's hard to distinguish what it is if it's in any kind of protective case like an Otter box. Even then, they all say "iPhone" even if they're an XS or a 15.

 

 

MacBooks are worse because they're all just "Macbook Air/Pro" You can't tell one from the other if they don't change anything like the port configuration.

 

All of them ultimately need to use the system information on the device to identify the exact model. Tough to do if the device won't turn on. My iPhone XS Max is MT5D2VC/A  ... what does that mean? It's completely meaningless, guess where that label is on the phone? Nowhere! It's on the BOX it came in.

 

Anyway I'm not asking for Apple devices to start saying "iPhone 16" on them (likely done for marketing reasons considering all the renders/stock images you see don't even show "iPhone" just the apple logo.)  I'm asking that on devices have distinguishing cosmetic features to tell one years models apart from another.  Cars do this by having different paint colors on otherwise nearly-identical cars.

[AngelaHornung]

Would just like to thank ya'll. I now understand the specifics of the issue when it comes to Apple's branding and quite frankly while its not something I ever considered it is certainly a valid critique that hadn't come to my mind previously.

[Yoinkerman]

I didn't read the thread but one of Linus' big grievances is their bold faced lying about eco sustainability and shit while purposely landfilling products and engineering e-waste

[TetraSky]

1 hour ago, 100sand1000s said:

Their stores will also take any computer or phone ewaste, along with batteries, and recycle them for free which a lot of places charge a fee for.

... You guys have to pay to get rid of your old devices and batteries?? I'm guessing this is a US thing ? 

In Canada we have governmental programs to "recycle" those items and there are boxes in a few big retailers to safely put them in. My old college even had a box to discard your old devices completely free of charge as well. We didn't need Apple's benevolence to freely get rid of our stuff.

 

Also this :

https://www.ifixit.com/News/94386/the-truth-about-apples-free-iphone-recycling-program-the-earth-deserves-better

[Thaldor]

3 hours ago, 100sand1000s said:

No that’s a global thing, you can’t really just dump LiPo batteries in a box they need to be handled carefully or you get a fire. 

More like US and 3rd world thing. At least in Finland, most probably in the whole EU since WEEE Directive, stores selling electronics are required to collect electronic waste free of charge from consumers. They and also supermarkets are required to collect battery waste (including LiPo and other rechargeables, even spicy pillows) free of charge. There's added recycling fee when you buy new electronics but it's already in the price of the devices and machines and already in the pricetag (so, no US retardness with prices hiking at the counter because including taxes and other fees in the price would be way too consumer friendly for The Land of Corporate Freedom).

[AngelaHornung]

17 hours ago, Yoinkerman said:

I didn't read the thread but one of Linus' big grievances is their bold faced lying about eco sustainability and shit while purposely landfilling products and engineering e-waste

That one I get and agree with 100%. No company should do that but unfortunately many do.

[Thaldor]

2 hours ago, 100sand1000s said:

So they’ll take a CRT from you then or a printer?

Yup, both are WEEE-waste and you can take them to either recycling centers or any WEEE-waste collecting spots (every store selling appliances and most selling any electronics) completely free of charge (decade or so back when the WEEE directives came some stores required you to buy new washing machine or some other big appliance if you were to bring for recycling but that ended quite fast and now they don't care enough and you can just take your shit and they will handle it).