They always have been. Mac OS X ran on Intel from the very start. iPhone OS was itself a fork of Mac OS X. The chip means a lot less than people think.
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New MacBook With A18 Pro Chip Spotted in Apple Code
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it doesn’t sound like this is for you then, because it’s not a revival of the 12 inch MacBook.
Kuo has already said it will have a 13 inch screen, likely the same 13.6 inch screen in the MacBook Air or the old 13.3 inch screen from the M1.
I would like these rumors to be wrong and to actually be a return to the 12 inch MacBook, but that doesn’t sound like what it is at all.
Then see an identifier called Mac17,1. Could be something else. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/06/26/imac-with-over-30-inch-display/
The M series and the A series are the same chips at heart with different names, with M chips being scaled up with with more cores and a few other features. The M1 is scaled up from the A14 almost exactly how the A12X was scaled up from the A12, the M2 is scaled up from the A15, and so on.
The A series (or at least newer A series chips) likely support virtual memory as Apple isn't going to want to redesign the memory controller from scratch. It's likely more of a software limitation. A-series iPads also use significantly slower storage chips than M series iPads do, so virtual memory could have potentially led to lags.
The iPad entry model isn’t limited to, or even completely targeted at, education.
it’s just an iPad, anyone can buy one, they’re sold at all retail stores, they have keyboard cases with track pads, they have storage options, cellular data options. Definitely not just for education.
I know, my hope is that that is simply wrong. My hope is that it's the exact same 12" MacBook chassis but the display is bigger with much thinner bezels and a notch and that's why he's thinking 13". Obviously I could be wrong, and if so I would be very disappointed, but if my theory is right then that would be absolutely perfect, as the bezels on the 12" MacBook are very big and ugly. Fix the display bezels and add MagSafe and it's perfect.
I'm skeptical. My prediction is that this is (ordered by most to least likely):
The reason I'm skeptical is that having an A series MacBook, the M series MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro seems like a very crowded product line-up. An A series MacBook would either need to replace the MacBook Air, or have many other comparative limitations and a significant price gap for both this and the Air to co-exist.
- A prototype laptop used for internal development and testing that will never be publicly available
- A prototype of a lower cost Vision Pro alternative with a disguised product name
- Laptop severely hamstrung in other areas, at a substantially lower price than the Air aimed at education
- A replacement for the MacBook Air to reduce cannibalisation of MacBook Pro sales by an Air that's too similar
The reason I'm skeptical is that having an A series MacBook, the M series MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro seems like a very crowded product line-up. An A series MacBook would either need to replace the MacBook Air, or have many other comparative limitations and a significant price gap for both this and the Air to co-exist.
Agreed. Somehow Apple has hundreds of thousands of employees, but Tim Cook is apparently responsible for every decision at every level from chip design, product design, product colors, OS coding and designs, product portfolio, pricing, marketing, and including the height of the mowed grass in the center of Apple Park. These people are just nuts.
Hardware costs have done nothing except go up. The ASP on iPhone was $500 10 years ago. It's over $950 today.
Apple has had every opportunity to introduce true hardware subscriptions, and they haven't. The most they're willing to do is iPhone installments. But a true hardware subscription like the one Ozlosleep is doing, where the fees are purely rental, are indefinite, and do not go toward a purchase of any kind, are really unappealing to users, and not an image Apple is looking to have.
This was a big exaggeration at the time. There were some subsystems adapted from OS X, but it was no where near what Jobs claimed it was.
* except the keyboard
** and the battery life
*** and how slow it was
The second two things were Intel's fault, but the keyboard was 100% a self-inflicted wound. But a decently priced reboot with Apple Silicon and a proper keyboard would be an instant buy for me.
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Even with those issues, I would still buy an updated 12" today if all they did was replace the intel chip with an M or A series one. Agree that a new keyboard would be better, but I would still use the old with if I could get an updated chip.
It would be identical to the iPad lineup, even down to the chip, also like the Apple Watch lineup and super similar to the iPhone lineup. Apple / Tim Cook clearly prefers the 3 tier lineup for their products and the MacBook line is the only one missing from that, so it actually makes perfect sense. Your lineups would be:
iPhones: iPhone (base tier) iPhone Air (mid tier) iPhone Pro/Max (pro tier)
iPads: iPad / iPad mini (base tier) iPad Air (mid tier) iPad Pro (pro tier)
Apple Watches: Apple Watch SE (base tier) Apple Watch (mid tier) Apple Watch Ultra (pro tier)
AirPods: AirPods (base tier) AirPods Pro (mid tier) AirPods Max (pro tier)
Desktops: Mac mini (base tier) Mac Studio (mid tier) Mac Pro (pro tier)
Laptops: This Rumored MacBook Here (base tier) MacBook Air (mid tier) MacBook Pro (pro tier)
Obviously it's not perfect, clearly the Mac Studio is just as much of a pro tier as the Mac Pro, and the iMac is an outlier, and the AirPods don't exactly fit this mold but you get the idea. Really Apple needs to unify their naming structure across lineups, to make it easier for consumers. Just use the same name for all tiers across each lineup.
They’ll probably make it 16gb of RAM and call the chip the E1.
Apple is developing a MacBook with the A18 Pro chip, according to findings in backend code uncovered by MacRumors.
Earlier today, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple is planning to launch a low-cost MacBook powered by an iPhone chip. The machine is expected to feature a 13-inch display, the A18 Pro chip, and color options that include silver, blue, pink, and yellow.
MacRumors can now reveal that it first spotted evidence of such a device in backend code related to Apple Intelligence last summer, and subsequently confirmed its use of the A18 Pro chip. The machine features the identifier "Mac17,1."
This would be the first Mac powered by an iPhone chip. To date, all Apple silicon Macs have contained M-series chips, which offer higher core counts, support for larger amounts of memory, and better external display support. The A18 Pro chip debuted in the iPhone 16 Pro last year.
According to Kuo, the new MacBook is expected to enter mass production late in the fourth quarter of 2025 or early in the first quarter of 2026, which situates launch in the first half of next year.
Article Link: New MacBook With A18 Pro Chip Spotted in Apple Code
Well, I can throw out random speculation with the best of them...
So, here goes.
This will be an education exclusive product, and will be marketed as the eBook. It will be plastic/polycarbonate. It will be offered starting at $499, in an attempt to claw back some market from Chromebooks.
If there's a sufficient demand seen for this product, we may see a M2 variant sold as a MacBook to consumers, starting at $799/$899.
We'll see?
Thank you. Some one actually remembers real facts and not the reality distortion around Jobs.
Eh. There's still thermal and power envelopes to consider. An M4 Mac Mini uses 4 watts on standby and 65 max, and puts out between 14 and 222 BTU/h in heat.
