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Report: Intel is Testing Production of Some iPhone, iPad, and Mac Chips

Feels like SOME folks reaching out to everyone they know,
“Hey, you’re already making this stuff up anyway, why not say this thing we made up? We need to keep the stock propped up with hopes and dreams until something actually happens 4-5 years from now that becomes the basis of actually price justification. Ok, so that may not ever happen, but still, do us a favor?

NOOOOO, you can’t get into trouble, again, because it’s NOT insider trading if you’re making it up! Gurman did it, why won’t you?
 
Howard2k said:
It'll be previous generation chips for devices like AppleTV, Smart Speaker, lower end devices.
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I’m guessing it’ll be for high end devices where they don’t expect to sell many anyway and the higher than expected power drain won’t matter. So the fact that the yields of chips that meets Apple’s requirements? Not even an issue. 🙂

Apple sells too many low end devices to trust that critical revenue stream to a company without a proven track record.
 
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Nicky G said:
Unfortunately, there’s no way other manufacturers can come close to making up for the loss in chip production capacity a Chinese invasion of Taiwan will bring about. I applaud these moves to diversify the supply chain, but overall it’s kind of a joke. If a possible war involves Japan and Korea (likely), well, that will reeeaaally screw things up.
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The question is whether Apple could still operate at some reduced capacity or not. And well, you have to start somewhere.

Assembly could be done in Brazil and India for some things - assuming the availability of parts. So this is one step towards de-risking. The rest of the iPhone needs to be produced too, of course.
 
I think that folks are going to be wary of Intel over promising and under delivering. Even making an apple silicon chip a couple of generations old seems like a real challenge. I have no stock in TSMC so it doesn’t effect me directly, it’s more a psychological resistance to having intel involved at all.
 
Good decision for making chip with Intel instead with Samsung.
Samsung until now they not split design team chip meanwhile Intel already split before Lip Bu Tan as CEO
 
That would be just my luck, said fairwell to my trusty old 2020 iMac today with the trade-in and nicely settled in with my M4 Pro Mac Mini and Studio Display - I wouldn't be particularly chuffed if they switched back to Intel at this point having done 3 processor transitions so far (OK, well we know that 68000 wasn't going to cut it forever). I am really enjoying the new setup though, the Studio Display is the real hopeful investment to avoid me shelling out too much on a refresh of the Mac in 4-5 years (again, hopefully).
 
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Nicky G said:
Yeah, if/when China invades Taiwan, the entire global technology supply chain is going to turn upside down. 😖 That in turn will crash most other industries.

May we live in interesting times… 😬
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This topic quickly gets political instead of focusing on Apple and technology more generally. Unsure if we want to go there in this topic. That said, a few institutions (including Hoover at Stanford) have studied this possibility in detail. From what I’ve read, a) China has certainly decided re-integration will occur and will need military enforcement; but b) they have zero desire or incentive to kill any golden eggs; c) almost all of the downstream impact will come down to how the US Congress decides to handle things. It seems apparent that the US President and the major technology company heads (many of which are visiting as we type, all looking very friendly with both leaders) are very much interesting in making bilateral relationships work to some degree, and smoothing over some differences. If China chooses to allow TSMC and others to, essentially, operate as is and only very slowly exert total control . . . a crash may be avoided. But if the US Congress decides that invasion is a line that cannot be crossed . . . because of the US’s own interests, because of what that means for allies in the region, because of what that means for the people of Taiwan . . . then the doomsday scenarios for many industries is quite possible. Recession is the minimum outcome. Those studies also indicate that China may have come to the conclusion the next two to three years is the right timeframe to act, given the uncertainty around the outlook of a future US administration, the slowing rate of growth in China, and the world’s apparent unwillingness to involve itself in stopping military incursions. They frequently reiterate that timing is highly speculative, and the semi-frequent sub-leadership purges don’t help in guesstimating. There is current US law on the matter, but we really do not know what the majorities in both houses would do if it came to it. I know the US government is now part owner of Intel, but I can’t imagine that even the CEO of Intel would state to the US Congress that a prevention of doing business with China/Taiwan would be anything less than disastrous to the US economy.

There is substantial predictions betting and hedging on this topic. Just as there was and still is with Ukraine. But good or bad, China and Taiwan are vastly more important to the world’s and the US’s than are Russian and Ukraine. If I’m Xi—I cut deals with Trump, Modi, and Putin to various degrees, and invade.
 
Trump has to go after visiting China next to Russia for begging the resources there (Rare earth elements), that are needed for USA chip industry.

Intel can produce them chips, but without needed materials? Nope.
 
iamasmith said:
That would be just my luck, said fairwell to my trusty old 2020 iMac today with the trade-in and nicely settled in with my M4 Pro Mac Mini and Studio Display - I wouldn't be particularly chuffed if they switched back to Intel at this point having done 3 processor transitions so far (OK, well we know that 68000 wasn't going to cut it forever). I am really enjoying the new setup though, the Studio Display is the real hopeful investment to avoid me shelling out too much on a refresh of the Mac in 4-5 years (again, hopefully).
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It’s not a change in architecture, just which factory builds the chip that Apple designed. No Rosetta, no emulation.
 
Can't be a bad thing honestly. There's too much reliance solely on TSMC for most of the world's high density chips.

Having all your eggs in one basket is bad news.. especially when a dragon is eyeing the henhouse.
 
Without getting into the politics of it too much, having all of their chip manufacturing done at TSMC exposes them to enormous risk in the event of a geopolitical change. Just like having all of the device manufacturing at Foxconn.

Diversifying the supply chain is one way to mitigate that.

That said, i don't see how Intel could be price competitive with TSMC even if they can deliver the requisite quality.

Hold on to your wallets everyone!
 
opeter said:
Trump has to go after visiting China next to Russia for begging the resources there (Rare earth elements), that are needed for USA chip industry.

Intel can produce them chips, but without needed materials? Nope.
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You realize rare earth elements are needed for every major industry in the US? It's not just an Apple problem.
 
I'll never understand this concept of not making your own chips, but designing them. What's stopping someone from stealing the design and making their own with your design? Wouldn't it be smarter to design and make them and keep it all in house?
 
iamasmith said:
That would be just my luck, said fairwell to my trusty old 2020 iMac today with the trade-in and nicely settled in with my M4 Pro Mac Mini and Studio Display - I wouldn't be particularly chuffed if they switched back to Intel at this point having done 3 processor transitions so far (OK, well we know that 68000 wasn't going to cut it forever). I am really enjoying the new setup though, the Studio Display is the real hopeful investment to avoid me shelling out too much on a refresh of the Mac in 4-5 years (again, hopefully).
Click to expand...
I think there’s been a bit of confusion here 😄
Nobody is suggesting Apple would go back to the old Intel x86 processors from the pre-2020 Macs. That ship has very clearly sailed, and honestly, after everything Apple has achieved with Apple Silicon, there would be absolutely no logical reason for them to reverse course now.

What people are talking about is simply the possibility of Intel manufacturing chips for Apple alongside TSMC — basically acting as an additional foundry partner. That does not mean “Intel Macs” are returning.

Your M4 Pro Mac mini is still 100% Apple Silicon:

  • Apple-designed CPU cores
  • Apple GPU architecture
  • Apple Neural Engine
  • unified memory architecture
  • ARM-based platform
  • macOS fully optimized around Apple Silicon
All of that stays exactly the same.

The only hypothetical difference would be which factory physically produces the silicon wafers. It’s similar to how many companies design their own hardware but use different factories to manufacture it. The identity and architecture of the chip itself do not change.

Honestly, your current setup is probably one of the safest long-term Mac investments you could make right now 😄
The Studio Display especially is a fantastic pairing because it’s very likely to outlive multiple Mac generations. And the M4 Pro platform is built on the direction Apple is clearly doubling down on for the next decade:

  • on-device AI
  • Neural Engine acceleration
  • unified memory
  • power efficiency
  • ARM optimization
  • tight hardware/software integration
Apple Silicon is no longer “new” or experimental at this point — it is the Mac platform now.

Going back to Intel CPUs would mean:

  • abandoning years of software optimization,
  • breaking the efficiency advantage,
  • weakening battery life and thermals,
  • hurting developer momentum,
  • and essentially undoing one of the most successful transitions Apple has ever made.
That simply isn’t realistic anymore.

So no worries — your M4 Pro Mac mini + Studio Display setup is very much aligned with where Apple is heading, not something that’s about to become obsolete because of a hypothetical manufacturing partnership 😄
 

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Jeeve Stubbs said:
We're always talking about the Trump administration pushing Apple towards Intel. But what about AMD? It's another American company manufacturing chips, isn't it? It could be another option on top of Intel.
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AMD is closing many of its fabs as it transitions to use the advanced manufacturing of tsmc and globalfoundries.
 
MacRumors said:
There is no indication that Intel would play a role in designing the iPhone chips, with its involvement expected to be strictly limited to fabrication. That would differ from the era of Intel Macs, which used Intel-designed processors with x86 architecture. Apple began transitioning away from Intel processors in Macs in 2020.
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Apple began the public transition away from Intel processors in Macs in 2020. Apple arguably began transitioning away from Intel processors in the 2010s and all but committed to such by 2018.
 
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