Nikkei: Apple Aiming to Produce 2.5 Million Apple Silicon MacBooks by February 2021

[FakeTimCook]

Apple is intending to produce 2.5 million MacBooks with Apple Silicon processors by February 2021, according to a new report by Nikkei Asian Review.

The initial production orders for the first MacBooks with Apple Silicon are reportedly equivalent to almost 20 percent of all 12.6 million MacBook shipments in 2019.

Nikkei Asia's sources stated that the Apple Silicon chips within the new MacBooks will be manufactured by TSMC using a five-nanometer fabrication process. This appears to corroborate other rumors that Apple Silicon chips for the Mac will be variants of the A14 chip from the iPad Air and iPhone 12, which is the only Apple chip made using a five-nanometer process so far.

The report claims that Apple will introduce further Mac devices with Apple Silicon in the second quarter of 2021, as Apple gradually replaces the Intel chips across its entire Mac lineup.

The first Macs with Apple Silicon are expected to be unveiled on Tuesday, November 10, at the "One More Thing..." Apple event.

Article Link: Nikkei: Apple Aiming to Produce 2.5 Million Apple Silicon MacBooks by February 2021

Bring back the 12 inches Macbook

 

[decypher44]

I must be the only one who doesn't mind the Touch Bar.

My daughter actually likes it a lot. I recently upgraded for late-2013 MBP with the 2020 version for a grad gift/college gift. I was going to get one also, but opted for an iMac because COVID.

 

[chucker23n1]

Why can't Apple just give up on BAD ideas and move on? Like e.g. regressing to split the camera capabilities between the Pro and Pro Max again with iPhone 12?

I don't understand why that's a bad idea. Basic optics means you can put a better camera in a bigger device. In addition, it's perfectly normal for features to arrive on a higher-priced product first and trickle down eventually.

The keyboard, yeah, that's clearly controversial. (And putting it on all MacBooks, rather than just the thin one, was just dumb.)

 

[Pakaku]

Between Apple Silicon and AMD chips, Intel must been feeling pretty worried.

Silicon will likely be Apple-only, so that really depends on how much it will actually matter in the world compared to everyone else on regular CPUs like AMD. Apple is a fancy brand but it doesn't have the same marketshare as other Windows PCs. I guess Intel is getting ready for a change, if Apple was a significant-enough amount of revenue, but I doubt said change will be earth-shattering unless the rest of the world follows Apple and moves to ARM

 

[decypher44]

Will new AS Macs be compatible/interoperable with Intel Macs? I have so much Apple product at home. If I introduce an AS MBP, can I use handoff, external storage, etc with Intel-based?

I hope that made sense - it’s 2:00am and can’t sleep!

 

[Kung gu]

But recently a rumor came that said Apple is working on a new type of butterfly keyboard for future MacBooks.

Edit: Found the rumor.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">apple did not give up on butterfly keyboard, they are trying to improve on the structure, and solve the issue, we might see it comes back again in future.</p>&mdash; 有没有搞措 (@L0vetodream) <a href="

https://twitter.com/x/status/1263809818168397824

">May 22, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

ming chi said future MacBooks will have magic keyboards

 

[djgamble]

I guess Intel is getting ready for a change, if Apple was a significant-enough amount of revenue, but I doubt said change will be earth-shattering unless the rest of the world follows Apple and moves to ARM

Intel's pretty much exclusively a CPU company. This is what worries me... Apple thinks it can out-do the biggest CPU maker for Windows PCs.

They MUST have a plan. I mean what's Apple gonna do when Intel releases something that smokes its chips... force us all to painfully migrate back to Intel?

 

[chucker23n1]

Silicon will likely be Apple-only, so that really depends on how much it will actually matter in the world compared to everyone else on regular CPUs like AMD.

Yes and no.

Between Apple Silicon and stuff like the Neoverse N1, ARM is on the rise. That should worry both Intel and AMD.

Apple is a fancy brand but it doesn't have the same marketshare as other Windows PCs.

Market share doesn't buy you anything. Revenues do. I'm sure Intel isn't happy to have lost one of the customers who only uses some of their highest-priced CPUs.

I guess Intel is getting ready for a change, if Apple was a significant-enough amount of revenue, but I doubt said change will be earth-shattering unless the rest of the world follows Apple and moves to ARM

Lots of companies are moving to ARM.

 

[LeeW]

This is what worries me... Apple thinks it can out-do the biggest CPU maker for Windows PCs.

But remember Apple only has to make the best chips for their hardware and software, Intel has to make chips for everyone.

 

[Serban55]

The 'm' suffix is the abbreviation for 'meters', not 'million'.

to Produce 2.5 Million Apple Silicon MacBooks​

 

[newyorksole]

Are y’all expecting redesigns? I mean, the TouchBar is 4 years, going on 5 years old at this point. And the 16” MBP isn’t really a redesign.

It would be nice to have physical/aesthetic design differences other than just the internal silicone and speed.

I know the iMac will definitely have a refresh.

 

[mscice]

Why bother wasting resources on a stale design when there’s a redesign on the horizon?

exactly ...

 

[Mr. Dee]

For persons who bought the first gen Intel MacBook Pro in 2006, how long did you keep it for?

 

[richinaus]

For persons who bought the first gen Intel MacBook Pro in 2006, how long did you keep it for?

The hardware was fine. It was the fact that the apps were terrible for at least the first 6 months was a big issue for me. Rosetta barely worked.
This time round I expect it will be totally different. I just wish it was a new design instead of peddling out a 4 year old computer for one of the biggest hardware launches in decades. Seems odd to me.

 

[TechRunner]

Given they're using in-house processors in these new laptops, how about a base 16" MBP for $1999? I've been hoping for a new design 14" MBP, but a base 16" starting under two grand, with sale prices in the $1799 - $1899 range would make me an early adopter, for sure.

 

[Falhófnir]

Intel's pretty much exclusively a CPU company. This is what worries me... Apple thinks it can out-do the biggest CPU maker for Windows PCs.

They MUST have a plan. I mean what's Apple gonna do when Intel releases something that smokes its chips... force us all to painfully migrate back to Intel?

Apple Silicon is more than raw performance, so even if Intel do retake a lead in performance (a big if looking at the long awaited Ice Lake and Tiger Lake chips) it will be difficult for Intel to compete with the finely tuned hardware acceleration components Apple is going big on for their off the shelf chips.

 

[G5isAlive]

Intel's pretty much exclusively a CPU company. This is what worries me... Apple thinks it can out-do the biggest CPU maker for Windows PCs.

They MUST have a plan. I mean what's Apple gonna do when Intel releases something that smokes its chips... force us all to painfully migrate back to Intel?

someone hasn’t been paying attention...if there was a chance Intel was going to release something good in a timely basis Apple wouldn’t need to change. But Intel has been underperforming for years...both in execution and timing.

 

[eulslix]

I don't understand why that's a bad idea. Basic optics means you can put a better camera in a bigger device. In addition, it's perfectly normal for features to arrive on a higher-priced product first and trickle down eventually.

The keyboard, yeah, that's clearly controversial. (And putting it on all MacBooks, rather than just the thin one, was just dumb.)

It's a bad idea because people like me don't mind the premium price tag, but mind the terrible ergonomics of such huge devices a lot. I tried the Max once, and I find it just absolutely unwieldy. I'm 99% sure the size requirements of the camera module are a non-issue.

 

[yurc]

Between Apple Silicon and AMD chips, Intel must been feeling pretty worried.

In this upcoming winter, Intel chips are handy though. I can warm up my entire room with overclocked i9-10900K without needing any room heater (even my Mac Pro in my signature can do that too once I pushed all those cores)

 

[incoherent_1]

Why bother wasting resources on a stale design when there’s a redesign on the horizon?

Given the hot mess that the 2016 MBP was/is (believe me, I own one), I think an incremental approach here is very good. They tried cramming as many changes as possible into a new model and that idea went terribly.

 

[kstotlani]

Are y’all expecting redesigns? I mean, the TouchBar is 4 years, going on 5 years old at this point. And the 16” MBP isn’t really a redesign.

It would be nice to have physical/aesthetic design differences other than just the internal silicone and speed.

I know the iMac will definitely have a refresh.

What more can you do with a laptop that would constitute redesign. If you ask a layman they would say all laptops look the same except for maybe the thickness. A 2012 MacBook Pro and new 16 look the same except for the thickness. It would still be a rectangular block of aluminum. Thinner bezels might please most people but that still wouldn’t be a redesign. iPhone 12 took the shape of iPhone 5. Is that redesign or just bring back the bell bottoms in style.

 

[kstotlani]

For persons who bought the first gen Intel MacBook Pro in 2006, how long did you keep it for?

5 years I think. It was my first and only Mac. After that I had to use a windows laptop for work and didn’t have time to even remove my Mac from its bag.

 

[bklement]

Intel's pretty much exclusively a CPU company. This is what worries me... Apple thinks it can out-do the biggest CPU maker for Windows PCs.

They MUST have a plan. I mean what's Apple gonna do when Intel releases something that smokes its chips... force us all to painfully migrate back to Intel?

It would never happen. You could categorizes Apple users as follows:

1. Who don't care about performance -that's the easiest.

2. Video/photo editing. That's basically matrix multiplication, just like what the GPU and the Machine Learning cores do in A chips. Intel could release a new x86 chip with triple general performance, it wouldn't matter much, a decent gpu + ML chips would smoke it. The only concern here is a performance jump with other GPU's. But from what we see from AMD and NVidia, they do this with ever increasing consumption, which is understandable, since their main market is not gaming anymore, but High Performance Computing.

3. Which leads to the third group, who do programming or research work. Part of this field also uses ML, for them the ML cores matter much more too. And you can generally say, that the main action is shifting to the cloud more and more every year. My workflow is writing small microservices, running some local tests on them, then a build server takes over the job of deploying it to the cloud. An i3 Air could handle it perfectly, having an extra few hours of battery is a much greater benefit here, than running a 20 second job in 15 seconds.

 

[Apple_Robert]

2.5 million is a lot for a group MacRumors order. What about the general public?

 

[bklement]

What more can you do with a laptop that would constitute redesign. If you ask a layman they would say all laptops look the same except for maybe the thickness. A 2012 MacBook Pro and new 16 look the same except for the thickness. It would still be a rectangular block of aluminum. Thinner bezels might please most people but that still wouldn’t be a redesign. iPhone 12 took the shape of iPhone 5. Is that redesign or just bring back the bell bottoms in style.

They need to release a new macbook under a kilogramm soon, or they will be a laughing stock.