Apple Silicon

While Apple just launched the new M3 MacBook Air, Microsoft is apparently convinced that its upcoming family of Arm laptops will offer even better performance.

“Microsoft is confident that a round of new Arm-powered Windows laptops will beat Apple’s M3-powered MacBook Air both in CPU performance and AI-accelerated tasks,” according to a new report from The Verge.

Earlier this month, CNBC published a rare inside look at Apple’s silicon lab inside Apple Park, alongside an interview with Johny Srouji and John Ternus. Now, CNBC has shared a video of the full 35-minute sit-down interview for your viewing pleasure.

We’ve seen Linux running on Apple Silicon Macs before, but this week marks the first time you can run Fedora Linux on M1 and M2 Macs.

This is a collaboration between Asahi Linux and the Fedora Project, and marks a key milestone in a project which kicked off back in 2021 …

The latest MacBook Pro laptops are powered by the new M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max Apple Silicon. In addition to more powerful and efficient CPUs and GPUs, these MacBook Pro machines support up to 128GB of memory, have brighter screens, improved battery life, and a new Space Black finish. Follow along for an in-depth look at what’s different and new with the M3 MacBook Pro vs M2 MacBook Pro lineup plus buying advice.

Don’t ask me what any of this means, but it might be of interest for some of you real Mac users. Apple has released MLX, “an array framework for machine learning on Apple silicon, brought to you by Apple machine learning research.”

A few Windows laptops are already powered by ARM CPUs rather than Intel ones, but we can expect to see a lot more in the future.

A new report says that Microsoft is accelerating efforts to overcome the current limitations of these, so that more PC brands can follow Apple’s example in using ARM chips …

A new report and video from CNBC offers a rare in-depth look inside the team working on Apple Silicon. The report features interviews with Apple executives, a look inside Apple’s chip lab in Cupertino, and more.

“One of the most, if not the most, profound change at Apple, certainly in our products over the last 20 years, is how we now do so many of those technologies in-house,” said John Ternus, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering, in the interview.

In 2021, Apple committed to investing $430 billion in the US economy over a five year period. Now the company has detailed plans to bring Apple silicon packaging to Arizona as part of that investment. The announcement seems to refute an earlier report that Apple silicon fabbed by TSMC in the US would still need to be packaged in Taiwan.

At its “Scary fast” October event, Apple refreshed the 24-inch iMac for the first time since its release in 2021. But during that same event, Apple also downplayed the possibility of what many Mac fans have been waiting on: a big-screen version of the iMac powered by Apple Silicon.

A vulnerability in A-series and M-series chips could force iPhones, Macs, and iPads to divulge passwords and other sensitive information to an attacker. Security researchers have dubbed the flaw – which affects Safari on the Mac, and any browser on iOS devices – iLeakage.

In a proof of concept attack, researchers were able to obtain access to the contents of a Gmail inbox, YouTube history, and passwords auto-filled by Safari …

Windows PCs powered by future Intel chips will rival the performance of Apple Silicon Macs, claims the company’s CEO, Pat Gelsinger.

No such claim was made for this year’s chip, Meteor Lake, which will debut on December 14 – but Gelsinger says things will change with Arrow Lake, Lunar Lake, and Panther Lake …

Apple is a long-standing partner of Arm, the Softbank-owned company that developed the ARM architecture that powers every Apple Silicon chip. Following an agreement to invest in Arm stock after the company announced its plans to go public on the US Nasdaq stock market, Apple and Arm have now signed a long-term agreement for sharing chip technologies.

Nikkei is reporting that chip design company Arm is set to go public on the US Nasdaq stock exchange later this year, with an IPO valued at more than $60 billion.

Apple, Samsung, Nvidia, Intel, and other leading chipmakers will invest in Arm stock when it goes public. For Apple, this ownership stake will help secure a stable future for the chip architecture that forms the foundations of all of its Apple Silicon chips.

Following the announcement of the M2 chip at WWDC 2022, we’re now on the cusp of Apple announcing the new M3 chip. The M3 chip is expected to be a major upgrade over the M2, switching to a new fabrication and production process that will offer a major boost in both performance and efficiency.

The Apple Silicon Mac Pro is here, but it still won’t replace my custom-built PC for 3D rendering and graphics work at 9to5Mac.

Apple has finally revealed their long-awaited Apple Silicon Mac Pro, and I won’t be buying one. With early rumors of an “M2 Extreme,” with double the computing power of the M2 Ultra, I was very excited about the Mac Pro and hoped it could finally replace my custom-built PC I use for 3D graphics at 9to5Mac.

Unfortunately, Apple stuck with the same M2 Ultra SOC from the Mac Studio, and besides adding PCI-E expandability, the computers are nearly identical. 

The Mac lineup has seen impressive improvements with Apple Silicon over the last couple of years when it comes to power, efficiency, and more. Now it looks like Microsoft is working to catch up with Apple by working on its own custom silicon and preparing Windows 12 to be optimized for the new ARM chips.

As the Apple Silicon transition continues, a new report from today highlights the impressive gains Apple has seen not only in performance but also in efficiency. In an interview with the Independent, Apple product marketing team member Doug Brooks discussed what motivated the transition, the current state of the Mac lineup, and more.

In this hands-on tutorial, I’ll show you how to run Windows 11 for ARM using VMware Fusion Player 13, an application that includes a free personal license option. The downside to VMware Fusion Player, is that it doesn’t include 3D support for Windows 11 on ARM, but that may not be an issue for you if you’re just need to run a one-off app or other basic software.

If you’re looking to run games, in general, Parallels Desktop 18 remains the better option due to its support of DirectX 11. The downside to using Parallels for running Windows 11 on ARM? It is a paid application that requires a subscription for the version that most people will want to use. You can read and watch our full Parallels Desktop 18 Windows 11 on ARM tutorial for more details.

The launch of Apple Silicon Macs back in 2020 was one of the longest-awaited developments in the history of Macs. The rumors date back to at least 2014, and with hindsight, the writing was already on the wall when Apple developed its own chip for the first-gen iPad and iPhone 4 back in 2010.

Apple’s hardware chief, Johny Srouji, said last year that the company itself had been working on the project for 14 years …

Apple today announced a major expansion to its European Silicon Design Center, which will see the company creating a custom-designed state-of-the-art R&D center in Germany.

The iPhone maker previously announced plans for a €1B ($1.06B) European Center for Chip Design in Munich, and says that it will be doubling its investment in the latest expansion plans …