If it's under £1000, has USB4/TB and a functional keyboard then I'll take one.
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Apple's Path to Arm-Based Macs Could Start With a New 12-Inch MacBook
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They only just refreshed the Air in March. Perhaps the "Macbook" comes back. It's also possible they create a whole new product line as they did with the Air, 12 years ago.
Well, this assumes exact like for like replacements, which we aren't 100% certain is what's happening (indeed this very rumour suggests not). As it's a big change anyway I would probably expect them to shuffle models a bit to take advantage of the new possibilities Arm chips bring, otherwise what's the point? The current lineup is built about the practical constraints of Intel's chips, the new ones won't be - therefore why have three separate 13" models (other than price forcing) when one could do the same job going forward?
I could foresee, even if the focus/ development effort shifts to Arm very quickly (12-18 months) that a current Intel model or two might linger around in the background for sale for those who absolutely cannot break app compatibility for a while. A bit like how the 2012 13" (unibody) MacBook Pro, 2015 15" (retina) MacBook pro and the 2015/17 MacBook Air all just stayed on sale quietly for literally years after they were updated last.
All manufacturers have premium phones that cost more than £1000s, where have you been for the last 3 years? How is this comment relevant to the discussions?
Having survived the transition from Apple ][ to Mac, Mac OS to Mac OSX, PPC to Intel, I am confident I will survive this transition as well. There will be bumps, some things will not work like they used to, and in a short while it just will not matter anymore. What I would hope is that Apple can get off the Intel rollercoaster and start managing their own product releases. I will not be buying the first ARM MAC but then I am not the target market for the early transition. I am confident I will own one someday and continue to do what I do on it.
Yep. I stopped reading right there. Typing is like the main thing I need to do on a Mac laptop. If the keys have so little travel that they feel like banging on solid pieces of plastic, I'm out.
I actually bought the first little Retina MacBook soon after it came out. I didn't have any issues with reliability, but I absolutely hated the experience of typing on it -- even after "getting used to it" for a month or so. I suppose if Apple fixed the reliability issues and saw fit to give it key travel similar to the "new" Magic Keyboard, I'd be fine with it. Two big ifs there though.
It's a shame, because I absolutely loved the form factor of that little MacBook otherwise. My wife still uses it today (and doesn't mind the keyboard) and every time I pick it up I marvel at the slimness and weight. Would it have killed it to make it literally 1mm thicker and good to type on?
I wouldn't be surprised if they bring the MacBook back. I'm just worried it'll confuse the line-up the same way it was a mess just a few years ago. (Do you want the Air, which isn't retina? Or the Air-like MacBook, which is much pricier and slower? Or the Air-like Pro, which is even pricier, but faster? Or the four-port Pro, which is pricier yet?)
As for in March: well yeah. I really don't see them doing this move any time soon. The Air is actually a perfectly fine laptop right now. Changing its CPU now makes little sense to me. Closer to Christmas? Maybe. Next year, certainly.
Well, the move to Intel didn't change the product line-up. It just rebranded the iBook to MacBook and PowerBook to MacBook Pro (and Power Mac to Mac Pro). The move to PowerPC just rebranded the Quadra to Power Macintosh.
Yup.
Why does a gpu require an x86 instruction set, I thought they ran their own instruction sets, OpenGL/vulkan/etc, and drivers can certainly be written for arm, so what do you mean?
Why would that be true? In the end, it's all just bus transactions so as long as ARM can drive a PCI-e bus, they can communicate with a GPU, no? Seems to me that GPU driver code would be among the easier source bases to port over, especially if you can get AMDs support. As far as I can tell, Apple is one of their bigger customers, so I can't imagine they'd say no.
Or, as others have said, maybe Apple is rolling their own. I'd think that if they've convinced most devs to port to Metal then the GPU itself is pretty well abstracted.
What a ridiculous quote to find in the comments of a rumor site for upcoming new Apple products. 😂
For some people it's very important that they know as early as possible what not to buy.
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They could make it $499. They can make the iPad for $329 and it’s still profitable.
Apple totally has the ability to make a great $499 MacBook if they move away from Intel.
This would be the absolute killer product.
As someone who grew up in the 80’s, our generation has been through so many technology transitions that they don’t even faze me. I know full well that it is absolutely neccesary.
The most stabilizing thing I have seen and appreciate is cloud storage tho. I don’t miss having to switch from the latest obsolete storage gizmos to another.
Change, bring it on. Without change imagine where we would be? I know exactly where we would be, and it is not good.
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The vast majority of the computing market doesn't need the power of an i7. An i5, maybe. For word processing, pictures, filters, email, web, they just need something that works, that's cheap, and easy to maintain.
In Apple's marketing arena, they need something with a screen bigger than an iPhone but costs around $599. The iPad isn't quite it, although it's getting there.
The downside is that Apple does try to stay at a premium pricing zone...even though the iPads are pretty cheap nowadays.
My hope is it'll be $599-$699. That makes the risk/performance worth it. The assumption is that it'll be at i3/i5-levels of performance: good enough for youtube, video playback, webcam, filters, keynote/google slides/etc. And they could lower the risk and make it edu-only.
I can't see Apple selling a laptop for less than their cheapest iPad Pro.
Always thought this was an obvious candidate since they discontinued the 12” MacBook.
I don’t know that they’d call a new thin and light laptop (12“ MacBook replacement) sporting an Apple-designed ARM processor a “MacBook“— hopefully not. I remember when they moved to Intel chips, they rebranded the most of Mac line. It went from iBook to MacBook, Powerbook to MacBook Pro, Powermac to Mac Pro. I think just the iMac and the Mac Mini didn’t get rebranded, no? For the most part it helped distinguish the new Intel machines from previous PowerPC processor machines.
Apple Book? Apple Book Pro? Don’t know how I feel about the names but Apple has been using that scheme in recent years, right? Apple Watch, Apple TV, Apple Pencil, etc.
I don’t know that they’d call a new thin and light laptop (12“ MacBook replacement) sporting an Apple-designed ARM processor a “MacBook“— hopefully not. I remember when they moved to Intel chips, they rebranded the most of Mac line. It went from iBook to MacBook, Powerbook to MacBook Pro, Powermac to Mac Pro. I think just the iMac and the Mac Mini didn’t get rebranded, no? For the most part it helped distinguish the new Intel machines from previous PowerPC processor machines.
Apple Book? Apple Book Pro? Don’t know how I feel about the names but Apple has been using that scheme in recent years, right? Apple Watch, Apple TV, Apple Pencil, etc.
I am so so excited about this ! Here is to PowerPC COMING back but as an ARM processor.. I hope ARM replaces everything intel.. Never liked Otellini to begin with or CISC technology. Yes, I have a 2015 Macbook Pro and can't wait for the Macbook Pro to move over to ARM. PowerPC wins through the spirit of ARM ! Now, Apple just needs to get rid of the T2 chip.
Apple is the biggest company (market cap) in the world. When Apple calls everybody picks up the phone.
Except that that transition went much quicker than they thought it would. They announced in June 2005, and Steve said that he didn’t think it would be complete until Q4 2007. The whole lineup had been transitioned by August 2006.Same type of play they did with PPC to x86.
This is gonna flop. Unless it becomes a low cost laptop, but we all know that is not gonna happen. So its kind of Apple tuning a Microsoft on this matter ... doing them a favor actually.
Apple already has the iPad Pro and iPad OS way beyond anyone else. Why not focus on pushing that Way further and better, along with more Sidecar like stuff such as the ability to remote over the Internet to a Mac on the desk?
Apple already has the iPad Pro and iPad OS way beyond anyone else. Why not focus on pushing that Way further and better, along with more Sidecar like stuff such as the ability to remote over the Internet to a Mac on the desk?
Office is an iPad app now, so easy to adapt for the ARMacBook. Also runs as web browser version (I use it regularly). Works well, similar enough that what Pages is. Microsoft does need to expand it. This old tune of “I need Office” is dead. It works everywhere now.
Everything else in your post is on point.