I'll be interested to see what Apple comes up with RE: low-power ARM laptops.
But some of these comments make me chuckle: This whole idea that Apple is finally escaping Intel so they don't have to be beholden to them.
First of all... Intel has released literally HUNDREDS of processors over the last few years. Big and small, desktop, laptop and server, high-powered and low-powered... that's what Intel does. They are a CPU manufacturer.
Then there are some people who still say "
Intel doesn't make what Apple wants"
Which brings me to my 2nd point... Apple is a fairly small customer of Intel. I know in the old days Intel would make a custom chip or two for Apple. But those days are long gone.
HP
alone orders 3 times as many CPUs from Intel than Apple does. Then add Lenovo, Dell, Acer and others.
I'd say Apple represents about 7% of Intel's CPU sales.
So... is it any surprise that Intel doesn't bend over backwards to suit Apple?
Besides... there
are suitable processors for almost all of Apple's computers. Feel free to browse
ark.intel.com and choose the processor you'd love to see in your next Macintosh. You can't blame the lack of Mac Mini and Mac Pro updates, for instance, on Intel.
Ironically... Intel
themselves have jumped into the mini-PC market. They have released over 40 NUC models in the time since Apple
stopped updating the Mac Mini.
So whose fault is that?
I dunno... this whole thing is funny to me. People are trying to paint Intel as evil and Apple will be better off without them.
Let's see how that goes.
Like I said... I'll be interested to see what Apple does with a fanless, power-sipping ARM laptop.
But the bulk of Mac sales are high-powered laptops and desktops. It's gonna be a while before Apple abandons Intel for those types of machines.
I know there are some benchmarks that put iPad Pro over Macbook Pro.
However... real-world tests might have a different outcome. We'll have to see how well MacOS (and your favorite Mac apps!) run on a desktop ARM architecture.