Intel's marketing snafus are the gifts that keep on giving. iThinkDifferent reported Wednesday that the company has started advertising "the world's best processor," by which it means the Core i7-1185G7, in "a thin and light laptop." The only problem is that the ad features a MacBook Pro, which doesn't come with an 11th Gen Core processor.
Reddit user "ChromiumMoon" shared a picture of the ad in question to the /r/Mac subreddit on Wednesday. Other commentators were quick to point out that the photo also shows an iPhone next to the MacBook Pro, and that the person using the laptop is wearing Beats headphones, so the entire image is filled with Apple products. It is in fact a Getty Images stock photo that also features a Magic Mouse in the uncropped version.
It is unlikely that Apple will be releasing a MacBook Pro with the Core i7-1185G7 in it, because the 13-inch MacBook Pro was one of the first Macs to switch over to Apple's custom silicon when the M1 chip debuted in November 2020.
It's not impossible — Apple still offers the MacBook Pro 16" with Intel processors, and if the company doesn't have a chip with support for more than just two Thunderbolt 4 ports ready, it could use an 11th Gen Core processor while it works on the M1's successor.
Two people who regularly predict Apple's plans, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman, have both said the company is looking to release a redesigned MacBook Pro lineup this year. Gurman specifically described them as "Apple’s first high-end laptops to move away from Intel Corp. components."
So someone at Intel simply grabbed a stock image, slapped the promotional text over it, and sent it off to appear in the company's marketing without realizing the laptop in the image had nothing to do with their product.
Normally that kind of mistake would hardly be worth mentioning. But it takes on a new light given that Intel has recently used some less-than-honest benchmarks to criticize the M1, extolled the virtues of PCs on social media, and hired Justin Long to go from saying "I'm a Mac" to saying "I'm a Justin" in a series of promotional videos.
