Apple is switching Macs to its own processors starting later this year

[Karlston]

Apple is switching Macs to its own processors starting later this year

Apple’s first ARM-based Mac will be available later this year 

Apple is officially moving to its own silicon chips for some of its Mac hardware. Calling it a “historic day for the Mac,” Apple CEO Tim Cook detailed the transitions to PowerPC, OS X 10, and the move to Intel chips before unveiling its plans to use Apple’s own ARM-powered silicon in Macs in the future. It’s a big move that means macOS will support native iOS apps and macOS apps side by side on these new machines in the future.

 

Apple will release the first Mac with Apple silicon at the end of this year, and it expects the transition to take two years. New Intel-powered Macs are still in the pipeline, so Apple isn’t moving exclusively to ARM-based Macs just yet. Still, this is a big shift for Apple to move away from Intel-based silicon in Macs.

 

The biggest addition this move to ARM-powered chips brings is the ability for iOS and iPadOS apps to run natively on macOS in the future. “Most apps will just work,” says Apple, meaning you’ll be able to run native macOS apps alongside native iOS apps side by side for the first time.

Apple is promising new levels of performance and far less power consumption with its move to in-house processors. Apple is designing its own range of SoC for Macs, with features unique to Mac. The common ARM-based architecture across Apple’s products should now make it easier for developers to write and optimize apps across every major Apple device.

 

Apple’s own pro apps will be updated to support the company’s new silicon in macOS Big Sur, and the company is hoping developers will update their apps. “The vast majority of developers can get their apps up and running in a matter of days,” claims Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering.

 

Microsoft is working on Office updates for the new Mac silicon, and Word and Excel are already running natively on the new Mac processors, with PowerPoint even using Apple’s Metal tech for rendering. Apple has also been working with Adobe to get these pro apps up and running on these new chips. Apple demonstrated Lightroom and Photoshop running on the company’s new Macs, with a 5GB Photoshop PSD running natively with smooth animations.

Photoshop running on Apple’s own silicon Macs.

macOS Big Sur will also include a new version of Rosetta. Apple used Rosetta previously for the PowerPC shift to Intel-based Macs, and Rosetta 2 will automatically translate existing apps at install time. This means that even if developers haven’t fully updated their apps, they should still work without modification. Apple is also using virtualization for running versions of Linux on these new Macs.

 

 

Apple is launching a new “quick start” program for developers with documentation and sample code, and offering access to labs around the world to help transition existing apps to Apple’s own silicon. Developers will also be able to get access to a Developer Transition Kit in the form of a Mac mini enclosure with Apple’s A12Z chip, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD.

Apple’s move to its own ARM chips comes just as the company unveils macOS Big Sur, which includes a big redesign of macOS and features updates to the Messages and Maps built-in apps.

Recent reports have suggested Apple’s move to ARM has been prompted by Intel’s slowing performance gains. Apple has reportedly been testing ARM-based chips in Macs and found big performance increases over Intel alternatives.

 

Apple’s transition to ARM follows a similar move by Microsoft to experiment with Windows on ARM nearly a decade ago. Microsoft started this work ahead of the Windows 8 release in 2012, and even released the Windows RT operating system that was designed for ARM-based hardware. Microsoft has since transitioned Windows 10 to ARM and worked with Qualcomm to integrate a custom SQ1 processor into its Surface Pro X device.

 

Correction: This article originally misidentified the hardware for the Developer Transition Kit. We have updated the article to accurately state it is has a Mac mini enclosure. We regret the error.

 

 

Apple is switching Macs to its own processors starting later this year

 

[Karlston]

This is Apple’s roadmap for moving the first Macs away from Intel

After years of rumors, the inevitable has finally begun.

First image of article image gallery. Please visit the source link to see all 7 images.

 

After 15 years, Apple will again transition the Mac to a new architecture. The company announced at its developer conference today that it will introduce Macs featuring Apple-designed, ARM-based processors similar to those already used in the iPhone and iPad.

 

Tim Cook pegged this switch as one of the four biggest transitions the Mac has ever had. Alongside the move to PowerPC, the move to Intel, and the transition to Mac OS X, ARM will be one of the biggest Mac changes ever. Apple is promising "a whole new level of performance" with a "Family of Mac SoCs.

 

Longtime Apple users have been through all this all been through this before, with the transition from PowerPC to Intel, and now for Intel x86 to ARM, all the big platform transition hits are coming back. The transition to ARM from x86 means that some Mac apps will be native and some won't. For apps that support both x86 and ARM, Apple is introducing the "Universal 2" binary that will package both codebases together. For apps that haven't made the transition to ARM yet, the Rosetta emulator is back as "Rosetta 2," and will now let x86 apps run on your ARM Mac, albeit with reduced performance.

 

For the new macOS 11 Big Sur, all of the included apps are adding native ARM binaries. Xcode developers can "just open their apps and recompile" to get an ARM binary. Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop were demoed as native ARM apps. Final Cut Pro has an ARM version too, along with features that run on the "Neural Engine" in the Apple SoC.

 

iPhone and iPad apps can now run natively on the Mac, which will not only be great for developers but will give users access to all their favorite apps. iOS apps will all show up on the Mac App Store from day one, and while Apple didn't make a huge deal about this, that sounds like a huge explosion of apps in the Mac App Store.

 

The key announcement was the timeline: The first Mac with Apple silicon will happen by the end of the year, with the whole Intel-to-ARM transition taking around 2 years. Expect to see new Intel-based macs come out in the near future.

 

To help developers with the transition, Apple announced what is technically the first ARM Mac ever: the "Developer Transition Kit." This is a Mac Mini enclosure with an Apple A12Z SoC, the same SoC as an iPad Pro. As the name suggests, it's meant for developers that want to port their x86 apps to ARM macOS, and comes with a beta version of Big Sur.

Apple's biggest market advantage comes to the Mac

This move has been predicted for years, as the upsides for Apple are clear. Cupertino has always valued tight integration of hardware, software, and services, but Macs have been outliers among Apple's products in their reliance on an outside party for the CPU. (iPhones and other Apple products do contain display panels, modems, and camera components made by other companies, though.)

 

So far, Apple's chip division has excelled in every market it has entered. In the world of smartphones, the company's SoCs are easily a generation ahead of the best Qualcomm, Samsung, and MediaTek have to offer. Apple's most dominant smartphone showing is probably the iPhone SE, a $400 iPhone that will out-perform $1200 Android phones thanks to the A13 Bionic SoC.

 

In smartwatches, Apple's chip division is one of the few companies making a viable smartwatch chip. The S5 SoC in the Apple Watch Series 5 gives the watch have great performance and battery life, and the only other company with an even slightly competitive watch is Samsung, thanks to its own chip division. All the other Android competitors are reliant on Qualcomm for the future direction of their smartwatches, and since Qualcomm has opted to not compete in the smartwatch market, that entire market segment is basically dead.

 

Laptops and desktops are the next great frontier for Apple's chip division, and it will let the company avoid the same fate that has befallen Android smartwatch manufacturers: letting some other company dictate your product lineup. Apple's plans to update the Mac have often been stymied by Intel's product roadmap, and Intel does not make chips that serve all of Apple's design priorities. The new CPU will be just one part of an Apple-designed system-on-a-chip that would also include (among other things) an Apple GPU and a desktop version of Apple's Neural Engine machine learning and AI processor found in the iPhone and iPad.

 

Apple's chip division has reached the point where it should be able to reliably compete with Intel on performance. The 2020 iPad Pro with an Apple A12Z SoC turns in comparable Geekbench numbers to a 2019 MacBook Pro with an Intel Core i9. An Apple SoC in a laptop, with a higher thermal budget, should do well, but Apple didn't offer any specifics yet.

 

 

This is Apple’s roadmap for moving the first Macs away from Intel

 

(To view the article's image gallery, please visit the above link)

 

[zanderthunder]

Maybe for a soft start, ARM processors will come to non-Pro variants of Macs. Just my prediction.

Also, not sure if Boot Camp will work on ARM-based Macs to run ARM version of Windows 10 though.

[Karlston]

4 hours ago, zanderthunder said:

Also, not sure if Boot Camp will work on ARM-based Macs to run ARM version of Windows 10 though.

 

From what I’ve read, Apple have not said anything about Boot Camp’s future on ARM based Macs.

 

I suspect this is a case of no news means bad news, if it was good they would have mentioned it in the presentation.

[zanderthunder]

4 hours ago, Karlston said:

 

From what I’ve read, Apple have not said anything about Boot Camp’s future on ARM based Macs.

 

I suspect this is a case of no news means bad news, if it was good they would have mentioned it in the presentation.

Perhaps what Apple is announcing is just a beginning, things will be revealed more when the time comes.

[Karlston]

For those wondering about Boot Camp Windows support for these ARM-based Macs...