why was the M1 chip so revolutionary? What did it do that combined power with efficiency so well that couldn’t be done before?

Question

I ask this because when M1 Mac’s came I felt we were entering a new era of portable PCs: fast, lightweight and with a long awaited good battery life.

I just saw the announcement of the Snapdragon X Plus, which is looking like a response to the M chips, and I am seeing a lot of buzz around it, so I ask: what is so special about it?

In: Technology

Answer 1

To make a very long story short: M1 took out all the old inefficiencies of X86. Apple can do this because they’ve never cared about legacy systems and can tell their developers to figure it out or get lost. Intel has such a huge install base they can’t make giant changes like that. I mean they could, but a giant mob of developers and users would riot at their HQ.