Just because they don't focus on benchmarks in their marketing does not mean that there isn't some serious behind the scenes effort going on.
If you want your end result to run smoothly, your internal engineering metrics are probably looking a lot like the guts of an in depth Anandtech article.
I bet they know exactly what their maximum frame delay, FPS, load times etc while loading and using their core apps are across every revision of the hardware and software, probably even using an automated system.
For what it's worth, I doubt he'll be so specialized - my guess is some kind of consumer advocate focusing on a higher level (of which performance would be just one part). Essentially reviewing products before they're released, probably even while they are still hypothetical or in prototype phase.
That’s marketing. Maybe Anand was brought on for that, but I really don’t think so.
I find it very easy to believe that Apple cares a lot about measuring the performance of their products internally and also about making the right trade offs. And that’s also exactly what Anand was looking into and writing about, always the whole industry in view. It seems quite easy to believe that he was brought on to do something similar to that, only internally at Apple and with actual power to change products during the design process.
I really hope that Apple won’t go more benchmark-heavy in their marketing. It’s unnecessary and unhelpful. Anand wrote for a niche. His writing had never mass appeal and it’s the wrong way to market products.
Also, marketing will never show you the whole picture, just because when you selectively leave things out your product looks better. It’s not exactly lying, but I still believe it’s not something Anand would ever want to do. It’s a business reality, sure, but it doesn’t seem like his business. He wants the whole picture, and the only place I can see him doing that at Apple is internally. To critically look at their products while in development.
Just because companies don't emphasize benchmarks in their marketing doesn't mean their engineering processes aren't driven by them. Benchmarks have as much or more value to the people that make the stuff as they do to the people that buy the stuff.
