Apple is preparing to announce a shift to its own main processors in Mac computers, replacing chips from Intel, as early as this month at its annual developer conference, Bloomberg reported today citing people familiar with the plans.
Unveiling the initiative, codenamed Kalamata, at the event to be held the week of June 22 would give outside developers time to adjust before new Macs roll out in 2021, the people said.
Since the hardware transition is still months away, the timing of the announcement could change, they added.
The new processors will be based on the same technology used in iPhone and iPad chips. However, future Macs will still run the macOS operating system rather than the iOS software on mobile devices from the company.
This will be the first time in the 36-year history of the Mac that Apple-designed processors will power these machines.
It has changed chips only two other times. In the early 1990s, Apple switched from Motorola processors to PowerPC. At WWDC in 2005, Steve Jobs announced a move from PowerPC to Intel, and Apple rolled out those first Intel-based Macs in January 2016.
Like it did then, the company plans to eventually transition the entire Mac lineup to its Arm-based processors, including the priciest desktop computers, the people said.
Apple is using technology licensed from Arm. This architecture is different from the underlying technology in Intel chips, so developers will need time to optimize their software for the new components.
Apple has about 10% of the PC market, so the change may not cut into Intel sales much. However, Macs are considered premium products. So if the company moves away from Intel for performance reasons it may prompt other PC makers to look at different options, too.
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