No, the cheapo macs are made to force consumers into higher prices and higher tiers. It's the same reason they reduced the ssd cache in the 1tb fusion drive to 24gb, so people would buy the 2tb and 3tb models
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Why did Apple decide to use slower clock speeds on newer macs?
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No, the cheapo macs are made to force consumers into higher prices and higher tiers. It's the same reason they reduced the ssd cache in the 1tb fusion drive to 24gb, so people would buy the 2tb and 3tb models
In Steve Jobs heyday, Macs were about the same price or slightly more then comparable pcs, like say the Xps line, which were all expensive and well made.
You had all these cheap plastic pcs, but then you had the expensive lines that people seem to forget. In the end it boiled down to things Apple did well, like high resolution, OSX, touchpad, etc
The problem today is that pc makers have gone above and beyond the call of duty in competition while Apple has sat on it's collective ass patting themselves on the back for what Steve Jobs did. While pc makers have improved build quality and lowered prices, Apple has raised them.
Nowadays it's not unheard of to find pcs at half the price or less with comparative build quality and size. Just take a look at those Asus Zenbooks...
Revenue streams broken out by price range would point out that the vast majority of PC's that actually get sold (outside of corporate purchasing) are in the low price razor-thin margin category.
I agree that on the high end OEM's like Asus do a fantastic job (I always recommend Asus on the high end to friends/clients that don't want a mac), but their bread and butter volume sales are not and likely never will be anywhere near their high end models in cost or quality.
And? A customer should always try to get the best bang for their buck no matter how much money they own. If a business puts themselves out of business due either to not making enough profit, or pricing themselves out of the market (As Apple is increasing doing with their 40%+ profit margins that they keep adding to), that's on them. I don't get why that tidbit needs to be mentioned. It's always a price versus value game when consumers buy.
I haven't seen any comments making that dumb of a statement. Everyone here seems to know pretty well that clock speed is only 'a' measure of processor performance. This debate is on the reasoning for Apple including these specific cheap, low-clocked, low-performing, budget processors in $1k+ computers. (Outperformed by even 2009 and 2010 iMacs.)
I'm definitely not saying being too expensive immediately makes something junk. If you pay 2x the going rate of an i7-6700k, I'm not going to say you bought junk. You simply overpaid.
However, this discussion is not just a string of ridiculous hyperbole. The main computer being referenced here (1.6ghz iMac) is an entry level, bargain computer internally (which many would consider junk in the PC realm). It just comes with a nicer 'paint job.' Just look at the 1.6ghz iMac: a 5400 rpm drive, dual core processor with small cache that's literally benchmarked 100's of places below old $60-70 processors, intel integrated graphics, etc. all for $1,099. Let's not kid ourselves, these are all budget, low-end components. I suppose the term "junk" is a bit of a stretch, because it does function as intended. So, it's more like a very well built, thin, small-bezel 720p 30hz HDTV. Still looks good, functions well, but if they're asking $1,000 in the current market, you're left scratching your head, asking "how...?"
It does relate to the OP's question, in that we've addressed - yes, newer processors with lower clock speeds can surpass higher clocked, older processors. However, these specific ones that Apple is using, do not. They fall behind even 2010 iMac processors.
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Ultra low voltage i5's and i7's in he iMacs actually cost the same or more than their higher clocked desktop counterparts they also produce very little heat and make for a long lasting decent computer with the same power as the average or even the most expensive ultrabook so a surface book at $2500 is the same performance. The cost savings on these cheaper models do not come from the processor.