Bloomberg: Apple to announce its first ARM Mac chips at WWDC, as it starts transition away from Intel

Apple is reportedly going to announce its transition from Intel to ARM chips for its line of Macs at WWDC, according to Bloomberg. The event kicks off on June 22nd (hosted virtually this year), and is the usual venue where Apple announces its big platform shifts. This year, we are expecting the unveiling of iOS 14, macOS 10.16, watchOS 7 and more.

Apple has had great success using custom A-series silicon for its iPhones and iPads, with its iOS devices offering market-leading performance. It is now looking to achieve a similar feat with its laptops and — later — desktop Macs. Bloomberg says Apple plans to announce the transition this month, which will give time for Mac developers to get their apps ready when the first Apple ARM Mac ships in 2021.

Bloomberg previously reported that Apple is readying a 12-core ARM chip of its own custom design. The chip would run on a 5 nanometer fabrication process and beat the performance of the current Intel lineup of MacBook Airs.

Moving from Intel to ARM should improve performance and battery efficiency, whilst also costing Apple less money per unit. Today’s Bloomberg report says that Apple’s silicon teams have observed marked gains in GPU and artificial intelligence computational performance.

The anonymous Twitter account @L0vetodream previously suggested that Apple would revive the 12-inch MacBook within the next year or so, and it would run on an ARM chip architecture.

WWDC is running through the week of June 22nd, about a fortnight away. Apple is yet to officially confirm a keynote date, but is assumed to be on the 22nd (Monday) as it will be the natural time for consumer-facing product announcements, with technical sessions following throughout the rest of the week. This would follow the usual WWDC schedule Apple has followed in previous years.

In an aside in the same Bloomberg story, the report suggests performance improvements will be a big focus of this year’s major OS releases, as well as new fitness features for Apple Watch. 9to5Mac will obviously bring you full coverage of all the announcements as they happen.