An iPad is not a Chromebook

Apple announced some new products this week. With the announcements, Apple made some claims about performance.

Apple compared the iPad to the Chromebook. Specifically, Apple claimed that the performance of the iPad was superior to the Chromebook.

The comparison is a misdirection. It doesn't make sense to compare an iPod to a Chromebook. And with changes in the Windows world, it doesn't make sense to compare MacBooks to Windows laptops, either.

Here's why: Apple tablets and Chromebooks use two different models of computing. Apple designs its applications to run on the local device. (Apple raised this point in their presentation, to emphasize privacy.) Chromebooks are designed to run apps on the web. For iPhones and iPads, the capabilities of the local processor is important. Apple needs hefty processors in its phones and tablets. For Chromebooks, its more important to look at the cloud servers and the network connection. Google needs hefty processors, but in the servers. The processor in the Chromebook need only be powerful enough to send and receive data, and to render the screen image.

Google isn't alone in moving processing to web servers (or cloud servers). Microsoft is doing the same thing with its Office products and applications such as Teams. The computing model for Windows started as local processing, back in the 1990s. Today, some processing occurs on the local system and some processing occurs in the cloud. 

More and more, comparing Apple laptops to Windows laptops and comparing Apple phones to Android phones is comparing apples to oranges. (If you can forgive the pun.)

The difference in computing models guides the design for hardware. Apple has to develop fast processors for its tablets and laptops -- all of the processing occurs there. Microsoft and Google don't have the same pressure, because they can shift heavy processing to cloud servers. Google shifts almost all processing to servers, and Microsoft is gradually redesigning its applications to take advantage of cloud servers. The result is that Microsoft and Google don't need superfast processors in laptops and tablets. (Some buyers of Windows PCs, especially gamers, may seek the fastest processor, but for the average tasks, the processor is unimportant.)

I'm a little confused by Apple's comparison of its new processors to Chromebooks. Apple made a big point about it, but it doesn't make sense. A better comparison would be Apple comparing the new phone and tablet to previous generations of Apple's iPhone and iPad.

Unless -- Perhaps the new processors in Apple's latest tablet and phone are not that much faster than the previous processors. Perhaps the new A15 processor is mildly faster that the A14. In that case, the comparison between A14 and A15 would be... unimpressive. It might be that comparing the new iPad to a Chomebook makes for better marketing. Apple can throw out impressive-sounding factoids such as "30% faster than the most popular Chromebook".

I'm sure that journalists and Apple enthusiasts will compare the new iPhones and iPads to their predecessors and report the results. We should see those results shortly after the new iPhones and iPads become available.

What if the third-party, apples-to-apples comparisons show that the new phones and tablets are only slightly faster than the previous generation? Should we abandon Apple equipment? Not at all. Apple equipment is still well-designed and well-engineered. But we should take a more skeptical view of the information that Apple provides in its hour-long "event" advertisements.

Looking ahead, we can expect a similar hour-long event (advertisement) for the next generation of Macbook laptops and Mac desktops. As with phones and tablets, comparing the performance of a Macbook to a Windows laptop is not always meaningful. (Especially if the Windows laptop uses a lot of server-based apps, or virtual workstations.) If Apple touts the performance of the new Macbook against a Windows laptop (or worse, a Chromebook) then I expect the performance improvement of the new Macs will be... unimpressive. On the other hand, if Apple compares apples to apples, and provides impressive performance comparisons of new Macbooks against older Macbooks, then we can be reasonably certain that the new Macs perform much better.

Let's see what happens at the next Apple advertising event.