[j16sdiz]

I am very confused by calling this kind of work "researches".

They are not pushing the boundary of human knowledge - they are playing game (reverse engineering) with other human.. maybe that is me having a very narrow definition of "research"

[kwk1]

What you are talking about is sometimes called "basic research":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_research

[sabas123]

I actually do a phd in a closely related area. Creating better tools to do research with is definitely part of the research process. While there is a lot of work in general operating systems, those aimed to specifically do a lot of microarchitectural experiments is still undiscovered ground.

[srdjanr]

Security researcher is a common term, there's also market research which doesn't look like it falls under your definition

[IshKebab]

Yes your definition of research is incorrect.

[ReptileMan]

Feel free to suggest a more suitable word. Research is usually defined against the the body of knowledge of the entity performing it and not all of humanity that ever lived.

[asdewqqwer]

Yet a published peer-reviewed research should be against humanity. I am also curious whether such research can bring knowledge that apple don't know, otherwise even it is impressive, there is a level of sadness in it from my view.

[exe34]

No it's against what's published by all of humanity. So if somebody knows something and hasn't published it, someone else can still scoop them.

[gosub100]

I think I see your point: how can you "research" something that was carefully constructed by highly skilled engineers and scientists who have access to every design document, artifact, and test used to build the CPU.

I don't have an answer to your question but I think you're being unfairly downvoted.