Updated: November 10, 2020 10:30:52 am
Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers the keynote address during the 2020 Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. (Image credit: Apple)
It’s a great day for Apple and the entire PC industry. On Tuesday, CEO Tim Cook is expected to take a look at the future of computing by launching the first Macs with internal Apple chips. Instead of Intel processors, Apple will use its own A-series processors based on ARM designs to power the most capable laptops available on the market.
“Apple is going to be the first company to have a 100% ARM-based personal computer,” said Mikako Kitagawa, research director at Gartner. indianexpress.com via email. “Apple needs to have an ARM-based CPU and Intel doesn’t make it.”
The move to “Apple Silicon” from Intel processors for its popular Mac computers marks a shift in the technology giant’s strategy. While some might be surprised to see Apple’s sudden decision to start shipping Macs with its own custom Silicon processors instead of Intel chips, business experts and analysts have long expected this move.
Apple’s A-series chipsets already work with iPhones and iPads. In fact, the Cupertino company has been developing its custom “System on Chip” for more than a decade, when it first released the A4 chip that powered the first-generation iPhone 4 and iPad. Today, Apple-designed Silicon is found in iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, HomePods, Apple TV, and even AirPods. So Apple knows how to design processors for a variety of devices.
This strategy makes Apple the only technology company that has end-to-end control over the design, hardware and software, as well as the supply chain of its devices that generate billions of dollars each year. But the Mac remains the only product in Apple’s portfolio over which the company has partial control. The reason: Intel processors.
Next-gen Macs will be powered by ARM-based processors. (Image credit: Apple)
Exactly 15 years ago, Apple decided to change the PowerPC chips it had been using in Macs to Intel processors. Many praised Apple’s decision to turn to Intel chips for their superior performance and energy efficiency, and the two companies together created some innovative products like the MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro. But now Apple no longer needs Intel’s expertise to power the next. generation of laptops and desktops.
“Intel has been one of Apple’s important partners for the past decade and a half,” said Navkendar Singh, research director at IDC India. “Macs are the last product line standing that doesn’t run on Apple’s own silicon, which has its downsides from Apple’s point of view on app development, user experience, pricing (cost of Intel license), the application ecosystem (running natively vs. requiring an emulator, etc.). From these perspectives, it is an important migration for Apple and also for Intel ”.
The transition from Intel to Apple Silicon processors is a huge problem for the entire PC industry and not just for Apple. For the first time, Apple will use ARM (Advanced RISC Machine), the CPU architecture that powers most modern smartphones in a mainstream laptop of the caliber of MacBook Air. Apple’s move from X86, a microarchitecture created by Intel to ARM Macs, is exciting and challenging at the same time.
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The ARM transition would give Apple the tight integration of macOS and silicon itself, helping the company create the Macs that deliver better performance and consume less power, resulting in a laptop that starts up in seconds. like smartphones and offers twice the battery life. . Having an ARM-based Mac means that Apple can now add 5G connectivity and more security features to its previously challenging MacBook lineup. But ARM chips are best suited for mobile devices, and no one knows exactly how an ARM-powered laptop would be comparable to an Intel-based MacBook Pro, which is designed to meet the needs of professionals and creators.
“We don’t yet know the details of Apple’s custom CPU, but overall an advantage of ARM over X86 is its low power consumption,” says Kitagawa. Singh, on the other hand, believes that if the performance of the A-series chipset is taken into consideration, it can surely match “Intel in several critical aspects of high-quality computing and rendering of graphics.”
Apple has always claimed that its iPad Pro is faster than most PCs. Support for Adobe Photoshop for iPad puts confidence in Apple’s vision for a new computing platform that has been in the works for years. But a lot depends on how developers view the transition from Mac to ARM. The iPad Pro is not a traditional machine, but the MacBook Air is.
Apple claims that the iPad Pro is “faster than 92 percent of all notebook PCs” available on the market. (Image credit: Apple)
The challenge, of course, is to stimulate the interest of developers and help them design new ARM-powered Mac applications that will be coded to run natively. When Apple ships Mac with its own Silicon, macOS will also ship with Rosetta 2, a new version of the emulator that translates code written for X86 into the new ARM instructions. Apple even promises that the new ARM-powered Macs will run all iPhone and iOS apps natively.
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The transition will not happen overnight. Apple says the transition to ARM-based Macs from Intel-based Macs will take about two years. The company is not yet ready to ditch Intel entirely, as Apple has plans to launch new Intel-powered products in the near future.
Both Kitagawa and Singh believe that Intel’s dominance in the PC market will not end anytime soon. “While Intel has faced challenges in recent years, with its newly released TigerLake series, Intel is trying to make up for lost ground and looks promising from initial reviews in terms of graphics, computing power, and other new requirements that are coming. looming. like battery life, portability, etc. Singh explained.
Apple’s transition from Intel to ARM chips may not hurt the chipset giant financially, but it could put a question mark on the Santa Clara, California-based company’s progress in improving the chips. processors. Lack of innovation and protecting its own dominance of the market have led Intel to lose Apple’s business. Once the dominant Intel, designed the world’s first commercially available microprocessor in 1971, it has fallen from its peak and now cannot stand up to AMD and ARM Holdings, a British chip design company.
“Apple Silicon” will be more powerful and energy efficient than Intel chips. (Image credit: Apple)
It is not just Apple that will no longer use Intel processors for its future Macs. Microsoft and other PC makers are slowly moving away from Intel’s x86 architecture and trying to build ARM-based Windows machines. For example, Surface Pro uses a Microsoft-branded SQ2 processor and not an Intel chipset. The high-end 2-in-1 runs Windows 10 on ARM, although the transition from Windows ARM hasn’t been smooth.
The biggest takeaway from ARM-based Macs isn’t the end of Intel or Windows PCs. This is a business model and that is why Apple is putting its own silicon inside the next generation of laptops and desktops. The move will bring Macs under Apple’s control and expand the company’s ability to expand the business. That means Macs will be updated frequently just like Apple’s other products.
For Microsoft, Windows on ARM is not that advantageous as there is currently no ecosystem of ARM-based applications available. However, Microsoft wouldn’t want to miss out by not bringing its core applications to Apple’s ARM-based machines. At WWDC earlier this year, Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, showcased Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint running natively on the new platform.
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