Apple has introduced its own fastest mac arm processor in place of Intel at Worldwide Developers Conference, 2020. According to Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook,
“The Mac is transitioning to our own Apple silicon.”
This is the third time Apple has migrated its Mac product line from one ISA. First, Apple switched from Mac’s original Motorola 68000 series to the PowerPC platform in 1994. The second was the transition from PowerPC to Intelx96 in 2005. Now, this is the third time Apple has now switched to its mac arm processor.
ARM started life as the Acorn RISC Machine architecture, developed by British computer manufacturer Acorn Computers back in the 1980s. Japanese SoftBank Group Corp now owns the company.
In the beginning, RISC chips used to perform the same work as a traditional. These were later labelled as CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing) chips. These were easier to design, and cheaper to manufacture. Throughout the ’90s, both architectures were widely used. However, CISC chips like those from Intel and AMD gradually dominated more and more of the market, with RISC chips like ARM chip relegated to low-powered, battery dependent devices.
Today, ARM cores are now being used in Apple’s iPads and iPhones. Apple designs its A-series chips for the iPhone and other products – but they are based on an ARM-based processing core. With this background in mind, it seems likely that Apple will stick with ARM chip.
Apple mobile processors have always been the fastest for years. However, Mac, Apple has relied on Intel processors since 2006. The new mac arm processor chips will build on the periods of mobile processors.
The key reason for Apple’s success in developing its own fastest ARM processor is its close partnership with TSMS. TSMS is Taiwanese chip fabrication company that is willing to pour billions of dollars into the R&D and manufacturing gear necessary to keep shrinking chips below prior limits.
Apple is claiming that it has got the expertise to challenge Intel in the PC segment. Intel offers more computing power by consuming more electric power. The fastest ARM chip of Apple has like advantages with lower power consumption, lower cost and greater control over product plans. By using this fastest arm processor chip, the performance of Apple desktops would show better performance while consuming less power than existing desktops.
According to Johny Srouji, senior vice president of hardware technologies,
“The first thing this will do is give the Mac a whole new level of performance.”
Apple demonstrated several high-memory consuming applications already adapted for the new chips, to show the horsepower of its Arm-based Macs. It proved Final Cut Pro playing three simultaneous 4K video streams, Lightroom scrolling and synchronizing edits across a large catalog, and Photoshop being used to edit a large image with complicated edits.
The shift from Intel processors in Macs to custom-designed Mac ARM chips will allow having more flexibility with Mac hardware updates as well as excellent tuning efficiency for the best experience.
The shifting to Apple’s ARM chips will also make life easier for the developers working on both desktop and mobile apps, as the software will be able to share more code. This would be the first time that developers could natively run iPhone and iPad apps on their Macs as smoothly as on mobile devices.
Hopefully, you will be able to get an ARM-based Mac by the end of this year,although developers can get a head start with a new $500 A12Z-based Mac Mini.