Comments on: Apple’s Marketing: Lies, or Just a Question of Semantics?

By: rocketman

rocketman — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:20:04 +0000

The author of the link you provided says this, "In my experience, it’s safe to
assume that a writer is using the "times more" phrasing erroneously. When you
see "100 times more," the intended meaning is "100 times as much as."

I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and say that was Apple’s
intended meaning.

By: Fife

Fife — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 06:41:34 +0000

I certainly agree that Apple told a falsehood.

Why not just tell the truth ?

At this point, if they are still repeating the "4 x faster", then it’s a lie.

By: gslusher

gslusher — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 03:17:36 +0000

Kirk wrote: "I’m sure there are some lawyers out there who might want to
challenge this, even though I don’t think that is the solution."

Why would any attorney bother? What would be the payoff? Most attorneys
I’ve known won’t take on a case unless there is some prospect of being paid,
including recovering from the respondent. Of course, you could front the
$10,000 or more that filing a suit would cost.

You could always file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, which
oversees advertising. I expect that the FTC would give it a priority that would
ensure that it would be addressed sometime this century. It’s just not that
important compared to real scams.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 19:49:21 +0000

For a much more cogent explanation, read this.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 18:51:45 +0000

So, according to your reasoning, 50% more than 100 is 50… Use any verb you
like: more, bigger, faster, older; any comparative. You’re saying that they do not
get added to the starting amount but rather simply factor the starting amount.

That’s incorrect both logically and mathematically.

By: danridley

danridley — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 18:20:25 +0000

"I’m sorry, what did I get wrong? Do you know how to do math? Try with a
calculator – 2x faster than 1 = 1 + (2×1), right?"

No. 2x faster than 1 = 2×1. For what it’s worth, 2x bigger than 1 = 2×1 too.
So does just plain 2x 1.

The numbers are all laid out in plain sight — 2x and 1. I don’t see how
including an adjective to tell you what’s being measured — faster, bigger,
whateverer — changes the math.

I’m curious where you get this idea from; can you point to *any* actual usage
of your "something times faster equals something plus one times faster?" I
just Googled "times faster" and every working result in the first thirty used
the phrase in the same manner as Apple.

By: Kirk

Kirk — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 19:54:37 +0000

You wrote:

"If someone says "you’re driving 10 mph faster than I am" then it is assumed
that you add 10 mph to my speed to get to yours. Similarly "10% faster"
implies take 10% of my speed and add it on.

If someone says "you’re walking two times faster than I am" then it is
assumed you’re walking 2x as fast, not 3x as fast. Saying "200% times faster"
makes no sense.

If you’re going to pick nits, get it right."

I’m sorry, what did I get wrong? Do you know how to do math? Try with a
calculator – 2x faster than 1 = 1 + (2×1), right?

By: Tonio Loewald

Tonio Loewald — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 18:19:52 +0000

If someone says "you’re driving 10 mph faster than I am" then it is assumed that you add 10 mph to my speed to get to yours. Similarly "10% faster" implies take 10% of my speed and add it on.

If someone says "you’re walking two times faster than I am" then it is assumed you’re walking 2x as fast, not 3x as fast. Saying "200% times faster" makes no sense.

If you’re going to pick nits, get it right.

The real problem with the whole "2x faster" rubbish is that it’s actually "up to 2x faster" or "2x faster on some random benchmark"; in fact, the Core Duo-based machines seem to be more like 1.3x faster overall, which seems kind of lame considering the fact that they’ve got 2 CPUs running at nearly the same clockspeed.

One of the big wins in Mac OS X 10.2 was optimizations to the text rendering engine. One particular operation was 50x faster, and in the Jaguar marketing crap there was a statement buried somewhere that said that text rendering was "up to 50x faster".

By: iseem

iseem — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 07:37:55 +0000

P.P.S. In the second paragraph of my above post I should have said "as fast"
instead of "increase." My bad.

By: iseem

iseem — Sun, 15 Jan 2006 07:24:30 +0000

While I applaud your linguistic purism, I think most people would take the
statements "the new processor’s speed is two times that of the old processor"
and "the new processor is two times faster than the old processor" as being
equal. This probably stems from the fact that we wouldn’t normally say
something is "one time faster" than something else. "2X," "twice," "200%," and
"two times" appear to be of the same kind, a kind to which "one time" does
not appear to belong–and this leads to confusion. Jobs misstatement is
likely also a result of the fact that while the word "twice" is still in common
usage, the word "thrice" is not. Can you imagine Jobs saying, "The new Intel
based iMac it twice to thrice as fast as the G5?" Hmm, not so much.

As far as the marketing campaign, the "2X faster" graphic can be interpreted
in two ways. It could mean "the new iMac is two times faster than the old
iMac," or it could mean "the speed of the new iMac = 2 x (the speed of the old
iMac)." While the first statement does, as you point out, mean a 300%
increase, the second statement only claims a 200% increase. Since the
graphic uses the symbol for multiplication and not the word "times" it seems
to me to be claiming a 200% increase. But the benchmarks Jobs showed at
MacWorld claim a 320% increase in integer performance, and a 210% increase
for floating point, so even if we interpret the marketing as claiming a 300%
speed increase, this claim is still justified. Either way you slice it the "2X
faster" claim is not deceptive or misleading, and it’s certainly not illegal.

P.S. No, I’m not a lawyer for Apple.

By: CSMcDonald

CSMcDonald — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 17:58:02 +0000

Either they’re lying to us now, or they were lying to us when the G5 came out and their claims on how much faster it was than the Intel chips, 64bit processing, etc.