Apple’s holding its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) on Monday, and it’s all virtual this time because of the coronavirus pandemic. Another thing that’s different this time is that everyone’s talking about one thing that’s more important than new iOS features: Apple’s transition from Intel processors to ARM processors for its Macs. Rumors of this started […]
Apple’s holding its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) on Monday, and it’s all virtual this time because of the coronavirus pandemic. Another thing that’s different this time is that everyone’s talking about one thing that’s more important than new iOS features: Apple’s transition from Intel processors to ARM processors for its Macs.
Rumors of this started a long time ago. In 2018, Bloomberg reported that in a couple of years Apple’s going to use its indigenous ARM chips for Macs and ditch Intel altogether. Later that year, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo supported this rumor by his own prediction. In February, Kuo said ARM-based Macs are coming in 2021.
So, we might not see any hardware announcements, but we’ll see Apple making platform announcements, paving way for developers to move their apps to a new Mac architecture.
Macs have existed for 36 years and there have been two transitions of processors till now. In the 90s, Apple switched from Motorola’s 68k chips to IBM and Motorola’s PowerPC processors. In 2005, Steve Jobs announced another transition to Intel’s x86 processors. It’s been more than a decade of Macs running Intel CPUs. But now Apple is prepared to move towards ARM to make laptops that are lighter and probably offer better battery life.
When Jobs announced the Intel transition, he also unveiled a new $999 developer kit: Macs with Pentium-based motherboards inside PowerMac G5 cases running a special version of Mac OS X. When developers returned these kits, they got a first-gen iMac in exchange.
