Apple has been rumored for quite some time to begin shifting away from Intel processors in its Mac computers to ARM-powered chipsets the company designs themselves. As it turns out, all of the waiting around for official word from the Cupertino tech giant is about to come to an end if a new report out of Bloomberg is to be believed.
According to Bloomberg, Apple will announce their shift away from Intel to ARM during WWDC 2020. If you recall, WWDC 2020 is scheduled to take place June 22nd as an online-only conference. It isn’t clear what tweaks the company has made to the show, and Bloomberg said that things could still change given the status of the current pandemic. However, at this point, it looks like we could see Apple announce the first few steps in switching away from Intel processors.
Why switch from Intel, one of the biggest names in computers, to ARM? Because Apple’s tired of Intel’s extremely incremental performance gains. Rumors have it that Apple simply wants to impress its customers with even better performance year over year, and the company’s A series of processors have done just that. Every iPhone and iPad that gets a new chip is always noticeably faster than its predecessor. That’s what Apple wants to do with its lineup of Macs, starting with the MacBook.
Not only will Apple’s ARM chips be faster, but they’ll also be more efficient and keep temperatures down inside thin-and-light machines. If you need to envision the perfect MacBook where an ARM chip would be beneficiary, think the since-deceased 12-inch MacBook (pictured above).
By announcing the shift this month, it’ll give developers time to update their apps for the new hardware. The first MacBook with an ARM chip isn’t expected to ship until 2021 so between now and then, most developers should be able to get a lot of work done.
I’m sure some of you may be wondering whether it’s worth waiting to buy an ARM MacBook over one that’s available today, and in my opinion, it’s not by any stretch of the imagination. It’s gonna take Apple a few generations of ARM-powered Macs to get the formula right. If you want a MacBook today, go out and buy one. Just know that in a few years time, MacBooks and other types of Macs will be getting much faster and much more efficient (y’know, around the time you’ll be looking for a replacement).
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