Apple Silicon is Apple's new lineup of processors for the Mac platform. It was announced in 2020 with the first Macs appearing at Apple's "One More Thing" event in November 2020. The first was the M1, and it first appeared in the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini.
Apple Silicon
Apple announced last month the transition from Intel processors to its own ARM chips, which the company calls “Apple Silicon.” Today Apple has confirmed another important aspect of this transition regarding the future of the Thunderbolt connection, which will continue to be present in Apple Silicon Macs.
Apple gave an impressive look at ARM Mac graphics performance when it showed a Shadow of the Tomb Raider demo during its WWDC keynote. There were many comments about how smoothly this ran under Rosetta 2.
The explanation was provided during a developer session on how to bring Metal apps to Apple Silicon Macs …
Apple developers have started receiving their Developer Transition Kit hardware, which Apple is distributing to developers to help them get their apps ready for the upcoming range of Apple Silicon Macs, which will replace Intel CPUs with Apple-designed ARM CPUs.
Despite the confidentiality clauses in the developer agreement, benchmarks for the Developer Transition Kit have already surfaced on Geekbench. Note that these tests are running under virtualization, using Apple’s Rosetta technology, as the Geekbench testing software has not yet been optimised for Apple Silicon.
Apple announced this week its plans to switch from Intel processors to ARM chips on the Mac, which the company calls “Apple Silicon Mac.” That comes as no surprise since the Mac ARM project was rumored a long time ago, but one of the main reasons for this transition would have been the recent problems with Intel.
In a new WWDC session video today, Apple has elaborated on the system architecture of the forthcoming Apple Silicon Mac transition. Notably, this will mean a few changes to the experience, including a new macOS Recovery options screen, as well as the deprecation of Target Disk Mode.
At WWDC this week, Apple detailed its roadmap to transition the Mac lineup from Intel processors to Apple Silicon chips. One of the biggest questions about this transition has been what it means for the future of Boot Camp, and a new statement from Microsoft provides little clarity on what the future holds for Windows virtualization on Mac.
During its WWDC keynote yesterday, Apple officially outlined the roadmap for its transition from Intel processors in the Mac to new Apple Silicon chips. This roadmap includes a Developer Transition Kit hardware program, and now the first developers are being accepted into this program.
None of us were surprised by Apple yesterday announcing that it was beginning the transition to ARM: In future, Macs will be powered by Apple-designed chips based on ARM architecture. We’ve been predicting the move for many years now, and the fact that this would be the year it was announced was leaked in advance.
There was a little more surprise at the first model being promised later this year rather than early next. Some were skeptical when 2020 was first suggested, in 2018, but two things seemed clear to us…
Apple finally made the announcement we’d all been expecting for years: the company is beginning the transition of Macs away from Intel to ARM powered chips. And with perfect timing, there was some news lending the ideal credibility to Apple’s claims that this will make Macs more powerful …
During its WWDC keynote, Apple officially confirmed its transition from Intel chips to its own Apple Silicon for the Mac. In addition to details for developers, Tim Cook announced that the first Mac with Apple Silicon will ship to consumers by the end of this year.
To help developers transition their Intel Mac apps to run on forthcoming ARM Macs, Apple is offering developers a new Developer Transition Kit. This is Mac mini hardware featuring an A12X CPU. Apple will start shipping these developer kits later this week.
Apple has just announced its plans to switch from Intel CPUs in Macs to silicon of its own design, based on the ARM architecture. This means that Apple is now designing its own chips for iOS devices and its Mac desktop and laptops. Apple said it will ship its first ARM Mac before the end of the year, and complete the Intel -> ARM transition within two years.
Apple will bring industry leading performance and performance-by-watt with its custom silicon. Apple’s chips will combine custom CPU, GPU, SSD controller and many other components. The Apple silicon will include the Neural Engine for machine learning applications.
We’ve been wondering for years when we might see the first ARM-powered Mac, and a Bloomberg report today suggests that it will be next year.
Apple is set to release its first Mac based on a custom ARM chip next year, according to Bloomberg. This lines up with previous timeline reported from Bloomberg, which cited late 2020/2021 timeframe, and other reports from publications like analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
The different architectures make it difficult to predict the relative power of an ARM-based Mac against an Intel one, but there’s no reason in principle why an ARM-powered Mac couldn’t be more powerful than some of today’s machines …
Apple is set to release its first Mac based on a custom ARM chip next year, according to Bloomberg. This lines up with the previous timeline reported from Bloomberg, which cited late 2020/2021 timeframe, and other reports from publications like analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
Bloomberg says that Apple is working on a range of chips aimed for future Macs. The first Apple-designed chip will apparently be based on a 5-nanometer fabrication process, and feature 12 CPU cores: 8 high-performance cores and 4-efficiency cores.
Former senior Apple exec Jean-Louis Gassée, who once held the role of head of Macintosh development, says that it would be perfectly viable for the entire Mac range to be powered by ARM chips – even the Mac Pro. This reverses a view he held last year when he called the idea a ‘fantasy.’
He said that while one of the two problems he discussed last year remains a huge challenge for Apple, power is no longer an issue …
Ming-Chi Kuo is out with a new analyst note today and the most interesting part of his forecast is that Apple will release its first Mac with an ARM processor in the first half of 2021.
Laptop battery life is one of the more contentious manufacturer-quoted specs. There can often be a huge gap between manufacturer claims and typical real-life usage — but that’s something Intel hopes to change …
Jason Snell has raised an interesting possibility over at Macworld: that future ARM-powered Macs might mean an end to the level of custom-build options we get at present.
It’s long been thought that it’s only a matter of time before Apple ditches Intel in favor of ARM-powered Macs using Apple-designed silicon. One report suggested that might happen as early as 2020. We’ve pointed to multiple reasons to believe that it will happen sooner or later. But Snell suggests that may come with a downside we haven’t yet discussed.
He opens by noting that, while Apple normally offers a choice of at least two processors (true even for the 12-inch MacBook), that isn’t an option with the 2018 MacBook Air …
It’s long been rumored that Apple is working on Macs powered by custom-designed ARM CPUs, moving away from Intel ones. Here at 9to5Mac we’ve long argued that it’s a question of when and not if, with one report even suggesting that Apple could make the switch as early as 2020.
That idea gets a big boost today as ARM claims that its upcoming CPUs will out-perform Intel ones …
Apple has reportedly poached multiple engineers and research staff from Intel for a new facility in Washington County, close to the chipmaker’s home base.
The hiring appears to have begun back in November, and is likely to further fuel speculation about Apple replacing Intel chips with its own ARM-based Mac CPUs within the next few years …
It’s almost exactly a year since I last discussed the possibility of Apple ditching Intel in favor of Macs powered by Apple-designed CPUs. I argued then that it was a question of ‘when’ rather than ‘if,’ echoing a view earlier expressed by my colleague Chance.
Bloomberg yesterday suggested that the ‘when’ might be 2020. That might seem like an ambitious timescale, but I do firmly believe two things. One, Apple is already running ARM-based Mac prototypes internally. Two, if it doesn’t happen in 2020, it won’t be too long afterwards …
After Apple’s confirmation that all Mac and iOS devices are affected by the Spectre & Meltdown vulnerabilities, it was only a matter of time before the company was hit by a class action lawsuit …
Apple’s announcement earlier this week that it plans to design its own GPUs for future iPhones and iPads did more than signal bad news for Imagination Technologies. It also added weight to the idea that Apple will at some point want to ditch Intel chips in Macs in favour of its own design of ARM-based CPUs.
The arguments in favor of Apple designing its own Mac processors are exactly the same ones that led the company to design its own A-series chips for iOS devices. Apple gets total control – something the company values highly.
Control of costs is part of it, of course. Tim Cook in particular got to the position he’s in today in large part by demonstrating a mastery of the supply-chain, and a significant goal there is to keep costs as low as possible in order to maximise margins. Apple eliminates royalty fees by designing its own chips, and that will further boost margins.
But while cost is of course one motivation, there are two even more important benefits to Apple-designed CPUs …
Bloomberg reports that Apple is currently developing a new ARM-based chip that could appear in future MacBook Pros as soon as this year. According to the report, the new Mac chip may be used for low-power tasks that currently rely on Intel’s chip to process.