In other words, they're absolutely using the Intel machine to bury the lede.
Apple is now facing the same struggle as AMD and Intel. They have a generational processor product that relies on new silicon to get faster, and they can't get new silicon fast enough. The M2 was basically just a wattage-bump of the M1, and looking at the performance increase/processor count, I'm inclined to call the Pro/Max the same thing. You're telling me you added 2 cores to a 10 core system for a 20% performance increase? Wow, color me surprised.
The whole thing feels like Apple's lack of humility here is biting them in the ass. There's nothing wrong with paving your own path in the tech industry, but mocking your competitors is not what a reasonably-educated analyst does. It's what someone in marketing does.
File it under the "botched marketing campaign" folder, then. If you're selling a machine to professionals, the copywriting ought to speak their language.
They are selling to professionals, but probably not ones that speak your exact language. Having a solid understanding of hardware puts you into a small small minority of professionals that this was meant to be for. This is the same for Intel and AMD marketing: hardcore tech people are not the target audience for this material.
If you know what "color grading" is (and your job depends on doing it) you're probably a "hardcore tech" person that knows what the mystical abbreviation "GPU" stands for.
Professional writers using a word processor might not understand what "hardware-accelerated H.264" means, yet there it is on their website under Air! Are those for "hardcore tech" people?
You're referencing marketing material. All marketing material is to sell the product, usually to a somewhat targeted subset of the buyers. Looking at their sales, and around any office, their marketing, and "Pro" products, appear to be extremely appealing to a large range of professional users. I think this shows that their "Pro" label is appropriate. I'm having trouble understanding why you think it isn't appropriate.
Do you have a notebook in mind that is worthy of a "Pro" label, so I can see what you're baseline is?
You defined a "Pro" as someone that's "using your computer to make money", like writers using a word processor. Let's suppose all they do is use Google Docs in a browser.
Should they buy the Air, or pay the premium for the Pro? After all, they're "hardcore tech" people.
Because then only people with Intel Macs care. People like me, who remember the 2019 i9 Macbook Pro being one of Apple's least-recommended laptops, are kinda unfazed by favorable performance comparisons. There are probably hundreds of laptops that can destroy it in a fraction of it's power envelope; it wasn't a great machine.
Mostly, it's ironic that Apple is comparing themselves to a company that they want so desperately to escape. And, once you do run the math on their actual year-over-year improvements, it's not that different from AMD or Intel. And Apple is increasing their power consumption to hit those numbers. It's quite literally square one in a sense, just with a different CPU architecture and a different manufacturer.
I just got an M1 Pro MBP for work last week, so I was kicking myself a little when I saw this. Then I was less disappointed when I saw the only difference is a 20% speed increase for some apps, no changes to things I would actually care about, like adding a couple USB-A ports, or if the speed increase was > 50%.
I do all compiling and heavy testing on servers, so the laptop is just for SSH, analysis software, and regular desktop stuff, for which it is fast enough.
Apple is now facing the same struggle as AMD and Intel. They have a generational processor product that relies on new silicon to get faster, and they can't get new silicon fast enough. The M2 was basically just a wattage-bump of the M1, and looking at the performance increase/processor count, I'm inclined to call the Pro/Max the same thing. You're telling me you added 2 cores to a 10 core system for a 20% performance increase? Wow, color me surprised.
The whole thing feels like Apple's lack of humility here is biting them in the ass. There's nothing wrong with paving your own path in the tech industry, but mocking your competitors is not what a reasonably-educated analyst does. It's what someone in marketing does.