APPLE LAUNCHES MACBOOK LAPTOPS POWERED BY ITS OWN COMPUTING CHIPS

Wed 11 October 2020:

Apple has announced the launch of a MacBook Air notebook and a range of other computers that use, for the first time, a microprocessor that has been designed in-house.

The new chip, called the M1, is a significant move by the company and marks a shift away from Intel technology that has been at the heart of Mac computers for nearly 15 years.

Apple is hoping that developers will now be able to create families of apps that work on both computers and phones.

Apple had said back in the summer that it would begin equipping Macs with its own chips, building on its decade-long history of designing processors for its iPhones, iPads and Apple Watches.

The MacBook Air will start at $999, the same as its predecessor, and have up to twice the battery life, Apple said. The M1 will also power the MacBook Pro notebook, which starts at $1299, and its $699 Mac Mini computer, which comes without a monitor.

The M1 SoC is the first PC chip built using 5-nanometer process technology and contains 16 billion transistors. According to Apple, its is able to deliver up to 3.5 times faster CPU performance, up to 6 times faster GPU performance, and up to 15 times faster machine learning, all while enabling battery life up to 2 times longer than previous-generation Macs, which were powered by Intel processors.

“There has never been a chip like M1, our breakthrough SoC for the Mac. It builds on more than a decade of designing industry-leading chips for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, and ushers in a whole new era for the Mac,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies.

“When it comes to low-power silicon, M1 has the world’s fastest CPU core, the world’s fastest integrated graphics in a personal computer, and the amazing machine learning performance of the Apple Neural Engine. With its unique combination of remarkable performance, powerful features, and incredible efficiency, M1 is by far the best chip we’ve ever created.”

Apple software chief Craig Federighi said Adobe Inc would bring its Photoshop software to the new M1-based Macs early next year.

Apple has seen a boom in Mac sales due to the coronavirus pandemic, notching record fiscal fourth quarter Mac sales of $9 billion earlier this month – all of them Intel-based. In June, Chief Executive Tim Cook said Apple would continue to support those devices for “years to come” but did not specify an end-of-life date.

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