So it has officially been confirmed that Apple will be leaving Intel and switching to custom Apple CPU’s, for its future line of Mac hardware. The switch to Apple silicon chips has been labelled as “a historic day for the Mac” by Apple CEO Tim Cook. The chips are taken straight from Apple’s A12Z that is in its iPad 2020. Theoretically, there should be a host of advantages that come from Apple-designed CPUs. But there’s also a host of questions that come with this announcement, for example, why did Apple decide to go it alone when they could’ve switched to AMD? Did they perhaps get sick of waiting for Intel with no guarantee that the chips will be good? It’s known that Intel have been trying for years to get a low wattage high-performance CPU out and maybe Apple simply couldn’t wait any longer and felt forced to do it theirselves. Sometimes if you want something done it’s best to do it yourself, is that the case with Apple silicon?
One advantage of Apple switching to Apple silicon chip is that Mac will now be able to run iOS apps along with macOS apps which is a significant development. According to Apple, most iPadOS and iOS applications will “just work”. While the first Macs with Apple silicon chips will not be released until the end of the year, it is certainly an exciting transition that Apple says will take 2 years.
Apple has said that their in house RISC architecture chips are designed for efficiency to gain higher performance per watt and can get better performance than Intel chips. Along with improved performance, they are touting less power consumption. And with every major Apple product now migrating to common technology and the ARM-based architecture, it should now be easier and more simple for developers to write and optimise apps across all devices. With the chips being such a major milestone and numerous benefits being attached to the changing from Intel chips, it is to be expected that Apple are going to switch out the chips without any other major changes allowing them to market a “brand new product” while highlighting performance and battery life as the major changes, so if you were expecting any major aesthetic and visual design changes from Apple this year with their Macs you may have a little longer to wait.
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