I won't lie, those chips certainly sound like they could be impressive... (particularly) in a Macbook or Macbook Air...
But, as I've said before, I honestly just can't see the long term merit of moving the entire Mac line up away from x86-64 to ARM unless (and really even if) Apple's got an absolutely massive lead in both single core and multicore performance vs desktop x86 parts as well as the expected power consumption advantages that would enable them to stuff a 12 core CPU in a ~5W laptop.
Had Intel gotten fat and lazy by 2017 when they'd had absolute dominance in the high end CPU market for almost a decade? Yep. Did Apple and the rest of the industry suffer because of it? Absolutely. Thankfully Intel's no longer the only game in town for high performance x86 CPUs since AMD's 2017 Ryzen comeback, and now, with Zen 2 (Ryzen 3000 desktop, 4000 laptop parts) AMD has managed to take a lead in desktop, laptop and server parts. If they can execute Zen 3 and 4 as well as they've executed Zen 2 (and if there's any truth to the whispers about Zen 3 it looks like they will), we could be looking at an x86 industry that will be almost unrecognizable by the end of 2021.
I'm not surprised that Apple can design a low power laptop CPU that's better than Intel's 9th and 10th gen offerings. Heck, they may even have AMD's Ryzen 4000 laptop parts beat in the 5~15W range. The important question however, is can they design a chip that competes in the desktop space and can they continue to do so for as long as desktop computing is a thing?
Remember, Mac volumes (AKA Apple's marketshare) could double or even triple and they'd still be shipping far less high performance CPUs than either AMD or Intel. And no matter how many Macs they sell, unless they're looking to branch out into the server business (doubtful) or replay the 90s in a new war with Microsoft, the Mac business will likely always be small potatoes compared to their other businesses. What this means is that Apple's chip design philosophies and priorities will ALWAYS be rooted in what mobile (AKA the iPhone) needs and not what the Mac needs.
With those kind of constraints, it's not a question of whether they can beat Intel and AMD today or even in 2021, but in 2023, 2025, and beyond. Remember, these companies, unlike Apple, live or die on the quality of their chips. You can bet your ass that sooner or later Intel's coming back with a vengeance and AMD, determined not to repeat its past failures, is going to try and hang onto that performance crown tenaciously. Can Apple really maintain a long term competitive advantage over these companies, particularly when they sell to enterprise customers who pay top dollar for high end servers and storage? I'm not sure and I think it's an awfully risky gamble, particularly when we don't know when the next paradigm shift in computing will be.
All of this is before we even consider the compatibility headaches a transition from x86 to ARM would bring. While it certainly wouldn't be as bad as the PowerPC days, owing to ARM having more market and mindshare than PowerPC ever did, it would still unnecessarily complicate things, and make Macs far less attractive for work that involves development, virtualization or any number of other things.
My hope is that Apple has more sense than to attempt a full on transition and will instead just announce that macOS will support multiple ISA's (x86-64 AND ARM) and that they will choose the most appropriate option between what Intel, AMD, and they themselves can offer for any given product. Only time will tell.
To end on a more positive note, I can't tell you how excited I am to see this site reporting on substanial MAC rumors for once
