After mocking Apple, Intel is now using a MacBook to advertise its Tiger Lake processors

It seems that Intel cannot make up its mind about its relationship with Apple. After mocking Apple through an advertising campaign, Intel is now using a MacBook in its 11th-generation Core i7 Tiger Lake processors. The irony is, Macs don’t use this chip, as the latest Intel chips that Apple uses in its 13-inch MacBook Pro is the 10th generation processor.

Intel is using a MacBook Pro in its ads

The irony does not end here. The ad, seen on Reddit by users, shows a person presumably playing a game on the MacBook, if the placement of his hands on the WASD keys and mouse are to any indication. The ad is titled “The world’s best processor on a thin and light laptop.” Of course, the laptop’s Apple logo is not visible in the ad, however, the design of the trackpad and port placement makes it clear that it is nothing else than a MacBook Pro.

To make things further interesting, the Mac gamer is also wearing Beats headphones, a brand owned by Apple, although it is not targeted towards gamers at all. It’s as if Intel’s marketing division really does not care about the quality of its ads, or the backlash they get.

It is important to note that Apple’s M1 chips in the cheapest MacBook Air already outperform Intel’s high-end Core i7 Tiger Lake chips.

In case you have not been following the one-sided battle that Intel has been raging against Apple, here is a brief timeline:

• After M1 Macs launched, Intel EVP felt good about competing against Apple Silicon. The feeling does not seem to have lasted very long.
• Pat Gelsinger, the incoming Intel CEO at the time, mocked Apple as “that lifestyle company in Cupertino“.
• Intel started promoting social media posts with the hashtag #GoPC, and tried to highlight some benefits of PCs vs Macs.
• Intel went on full offensive mode, and instead of targeting AMD in its ads, it tried to reignite a PC vs Mac war by hiring Mac guy Justin Long from Apple’s old ads. To give Intel some credit, the company has been brave enough to not disable comments on these cringeworthy ads, unlike Microsoft’s Surface vs Apple products ads.
• The PC vs Mac campaign from Intel also got a website, which highlighted very selective comparisons that try hard to show PCs as the better choice.
• After mocking Apple’s products, CEO Pat Gelsinger mentioned during IDM 2.0 hinted that Intel wants to manufacture M1 chips for Apple in its facilities in Arizona. Why would Apple want to use an older manufacturing process is questionable.

So far, we have not seen any response from Apple. Considering that most Macs that are on sale at the moment, including the high-end 13-inch MacBook Pro, 16-inch MacBook Pro, iMacs, and Mac Pro, are all powered by Intel chips, it would not make sense to publicly go against an existing partner. Apple had even avoided naming Intel in any of its announcements and relied on generic graphics and charts to show the performance improvements in M1.