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Report: Super-Lightweight 12-inch MacBook Powered By Apple Silicon to Launch This Year

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Apple has designed a 12-inch MacBook powered by Apple Silicon that weighs less than one kilogram and the company intends to launch it by the end of the year, according to a new report today.

a14-MacBook-Feature.jpg

Apple's first ARM-based Mac will use an A14X processor, which is codenamed "Tonga" and manufactured by TSMC, and the MacBook will have a battery life of between 15 and 20 hours, according to the Chinese-language newspaper The China Times.

According to Apple's supply chain, Apple is expected to launch a Macbook with a 12-inch Retina Display at the end of this year, using its self-developed and designed A14X processor, with the development code of Tonga, supporting a USB Type-C interface and weighing less than 1 kilogram, because of the low-power advantage of the Arm-based processor. The Macbook battery lasts 15 to 20 hours. The A14X processor will also be used in the new generation iPad Pro tablet.
Click to expand...
Apple announced at its WWDC developer conference in June that its Macs will transition from Intel x86-based CPUs to its self-designed Arm-based Apple Silicon processors over the next two years. Bloomberg has said that Apple is currently developing at least three Mac processors that are based on the 5-nanometer A14 chip that will be used in the upcoming iPhone 12 models. According to the Chinese report's sources, the first Apple-designed A14X processor has been finalized and will be mass produced using TSMC's 5-nanometer process by the end of the year.

Apple's first Mac processors will have 12 cores, including eight high-performance cores and at least four energy-efficient cores, according to Bloomberg. Apple is said to be exploring Mac processors with more than 12 cores for further in the future, with the company already designing a second generation of Mac processors based on the A15 chip.

This is the second time we've heard rumors of Apple reviving the 12-inch MacBook form factor to showcase its first consumer Apple Silicon machine. Fudge, a leaker who goes by @choco_bit on Twitter, said in June that Apple could revive its now-discontinued MacBook, with a new 12-inch model unveiled as the first Mac with an Apple-designed Arm-based chip. Fudge said the 12-inch MacBook could look the same as the retired version with minimal design changes, although 5G connectivity could be a feature.

In contrast to today's report, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said a 13.3-inch MacBook Pro with a form factor similar to the current 13.3-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ could be the first Mac to get an Arm-based chip designed by Apple. In March, Kuo predicted this new ‌MacBook Pro‌ will launch late in 2020 or early in 2021.

Kuo said he expects the ‌Apple Silicon‌ 13.3-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ to go into mass production in the fourth quarter of this year, but he has also predicted we will see an Arm-based MacBook Air either in the same quarter or in the first quarter of next year, so it's not impossible the 12-inch machine turns out to be a redesigned MacBook Air.

Today's report also claims that Apple will launch an Apple Silicon iMac next year with a powerful custom-designed graphics processing unit, replacing the mobile AMD GPUs that Apple has traditionally relied on. In addition, the report claims the A14 chip to feature in Apple's upcoming iPhone 12 lineup is codenamed "Sicilian."

Article Link: Report: Super-Lightweight 12-inch MacBook Powered By Apple Silicon to Launch This Year
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/31/12-inch-macbook-apple-silicon-this-year/
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this makes the most sense out of all the first apple silicon rumors.

the last 12-inch was severely underpowered. apple will show it'll be nearly as powerful as MBP, but not quite enough ports for pros to switch over. then it'll show what apple silicon can do with better thermal design in the MBP.
 
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Reactions: retrophonic, radiologyman, Mr. Awesome and 27 others
What I like to know is how much better are apple's "silicon" chips in video rendering compared to intel machines using AMD GPUs? Apple divorced themselves with Nvidia so cuda is out of the question so now we are stuck with open cl and metal. I am still not buying the hype that a lone a14(xxx) can outperform the current offerings.
 
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Reactions: rafark, sideshowuniqueuser, joy.757 and 7 others
Would be a good move. Releasing a pricy, possibly buggy product under the “MacBook Pro“ name is risky and least imo. A 2021 Macbook Pro Arm makes more sense, and a 2022 ARM Pro is gonna be the one for me.
 
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Reactions: HardBall and Altherekho
"Less than 1 kilogram" will actually be "close to 1 kg" (otherwise they would say "half a kilogram"), which is too much for a 12-inch nowadays (the Intel rMB already had that weight). That's too much for such a little screen. Look at the LG gram: A 17-inch weighting 1kg(*) 1.35kg (you can argue the LG gram is not rigid enough, but it has the screen size you want --big--- and the weight you need).

EDIT: In my original post I said the 17inch LG Gram weighted 1kg. As others pointed out, it's actually 1.35kg (not sure what their claim is, though, because this LG is 17inch... if you want the same lightness in a MacBook, you need to choose a 13inch, either MBA or MBP --and, while I understand that MBP should be heavy because of their performance, the rest of MBs should be light as air... I don't care if they cannot use aluminum, nor if it looks like plastic: they should be lighter than the LG offerings, no matter what --that's what I'd expect from a non-MBP MacBook)
 
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Reactions: ModusOperandi, Marty_Macfly, Zorori and 9 others
15-20 hours battery life, you can just see it from now when apple mentions this during the event, then people start using the machine and end up getting half of that usage. 😂
 
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Looking forward to the benchmarks, it really needs to be faster than the current 13inch MBP for Apple to show everyone what the A series cpus are capable of. It if just offers similar performance to current MB Airs, then people will wonder why Apple made the switch.
 
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Contrary to the mainstream opinion here, I would argue that this might not be true. The 12-inch MacBook, being supposedly the entry-level Mac, was not in a clear space in the lineup in 2016. On the one hand, there was the MacBook Pro, starting at the same price, while being much more powerful. Apple wanted the MacBook to be a ultra thin and light parallel to the Pro, but it did not go so well. This is caused, on the one hand, by the thermal constrains of the chassis, and one the other hand, the high manufacturing cost of the ultra dense motherboard and the terrace battery. Apple quickly reverted that with the reintroduction on the MacBook Air. I doubt whether Apple will make the same mistake again.
 
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Reactions: Jimmy James and shurcooL
Glad I just went ahead and bought the 16” MBP the other day. Seems like there probably won’t be a chip variant ready for it for over a year at a minimum when the A15 comes out. I’ve needed a MBP since the spring and finally caved. Glad I did. It seems fine so far and it will be a couple more years until third party Mac software is fully optimized for ARM and the bugs are worked out. Wish I had realized this sooner.
 
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