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

[lazyrighteye]

I’m going to be the first one lining up at the door. This makes a lot of sense.

I miss the days of lining up at the doors for new Apple hardware release. Is it easier to go online in your underwear and order? Sure. But easier isn’t always better. And certainly not always more fun. It’s one of the Angela-era decisions I actually felt, and still feel, was a bad one. This community is what makes this company so strong. And removing that social component and energy, to me, was when I felt Apple had changed most. IMO.

Anyway, hoping the new chips usher in some new hardware design language. From a bottom line POV, putting new chips in existing hardware sounds like an iterative move that’s right in Tim‘s wheelhouse. New chips cost in R&D. So too does design upgrades. Why implement both when you KNOW these babies will fly off the shelves based solely on the ARM switch?

Regardless, I can’t help but feel this next chapter of Apple might be its most exciting to date - which yes, is saying something. Time will tell.

 

[jclardy]

I can't wait for this 12" MB to return, it was one of my favorite Apple computers ever, other than the first gen butterfly, only having a single port and horrid performance 😆 An A14X + 16GB RAM in this will be amazing, just basing this on using my iPad Pro day to day with it's meager A12X + 6GB RAM.

 

[now i see it]

"Apple Silicon" is a lame name.

 

[Rogifan]

This rumor does make some sense. Apple stopped selling the 12” MacBook but they never retired the name. It would be the perfect intro device for Apple Silicon.

 

[jent]

Hopefully "a USB Type-C" doesn't mean singular. A Mac needs more than one port.

I guess I didn't follow the news around the single-port 12" MacBook back in the day. How did it even get used? Constant multi-port adapters and docks? Was the target consumer someone who wouldn't be plugging things in often? Two ports I could live with but one seems crazy.

 

[LeadingHeat]

I think it’s smart to release the first ARM Mac as a MacBook. If these rumored specs are true, it’ll blow away the intel equivalent. Then they can tout “just think of how powerful a PRO level chip will be!”. I for one am very excited.

I do hope with Apple GPUs that developers will jump on board. Makes me nervous that they divorced from Nvidia. Obviously they know what they’re doing though, and I’m basing all of this off rumors...

 

[Zackmd1]

It never made sense to me why they would release a MacBook Pro 13.3 when the 14 is seemingly right around the corner.

Releasing a new 12" along with a 24" redesigned iMac makes perfect sense for this year. Early next year could be the Mac mini, 14" MBP and then later in the year could be a ~30" iMac with the custom GPU and 16" MBP with that same custom GPU.

 

[Rogifan]

The MacBook was a natural transition for the MacBook Air back in 2015. I'm willing to bet the Air was only kept around and updated after Apple realized Intel's fanless chips weren't going to perform half as well as Intel initially promised. There were no updates for the non-retina Air for years after the MacBook's release. This time Apple will have their own chips, so I'm guessing they are going to have only one name with multiple sizes, like the old days with the Air.

That’s what Apple should do but the Air name is so powerful I’m not sure they can drop it. Even when the 13” MNP was getting into Air territory in terms of thickness and weight tech journalists were still whining about Apple not selling a retina Air. But having the MB, MBA and MBP makes no sense.

 

[deevey]

I guess I didn't follow the news around the single-port 12" MacBook back in the day. How did it even get used? Constant multi-port adapters and docks? Was the target consumer someone who wouldn't be plugging things in often? Two ports I could live with but one seems crazy.

Hey, at least it had a headphone jack !

Did I just Jinx it

 

[Mr Todhunter]

This rumor does make some sense. Apple stopped selling the 12” MacBook but they never retired the name. It would be the perfect intro device for Apple Silicon.

I will never ever buy a laptop with only one port. Period.

 

[jlocker]

This is a good starting point for Apple, the most basic and simple Mac should get the ASIC processor and then work your way up. This unit will be great for simple word processing, web browsing, spreadsheets. The basics of computing for people. This will fill the need of the entry level computer user needing a real computer with a keyboard.

 

[ejin222]

If they do just call it "MacBook", my naming OCD will be triggered again! 😂

The current MacBook Air should be MacBook.

This new rumoured thing should be MacBook Air.

And then MacBook Pro, and the lineup makes sense.

Look at the iPad lineup.
iPad is the base, Air is the mid tier, and Pro is the high end.
this is the new Apple naming scheme

 

[Laurent François]

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. 😂

Yep, it's going to be 15-20 hours if you don't use the screen at full brightness, don't drive a second screen, only type text/emails (or do other type of light office work) or browse the web -- without too many open tabs. Probably don't use Rosetta either, dream not about watching videos or gaming etc.

Still, even 8~10h would be very impressive and useful.

 

[AlliFlowers]

But having the MB, MBA and MBP makes no sense.

That was my first thought as well. That, and if they’re now all so light, why are we still only seeing them so small?

If you get a second, send me a DM please.

 

[Sethal]

If this includes some form on biometrics, be that Touch ID or Face ID, then I am on board 100%.

 

[Altherekho]

I Mean, the current MacBook lineup is a little weird. On the one hand, we have the 13 inch MacBook Air and the lower-end 13 inch MacBook Pro that has similar weight, but the Air is artificially crippled thermally, while the Pro receive proper cooling but rocking a significantly worse processor. And the MacBook Pro with up-to-date processor is way too expensive. The whole lineup seems a little over priced, except for the Air. I think it would be ideal if apple give the Air a P3 display and a heat pipe, and cancel the lower end pro, and lower the price of the 10th-gen Pro and the 16-inch by 200$ or so.

I agree

 

[Trusteft]

Huh? Are you claiming there was a point in time where the MBA was discontinued in favour of the 12in MB?

That's what you understood?
ok, forget it.

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

This will have amazing power yet cannot play PC games.... a major bummer... unless Steam support is coming

Let the PCs have their games. I need an ultraportable Mac for work.

 

[aberdeenmeadows]

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.

I would be very happy to share my experience with you. I can't vouch for the A14X, but I can vouch for the A12X, which comes in the Apple Developer Transition Kit that has 16gb memory and 512gb SSD.

I have a 2018 version iMac 27", 32gb Memory and an i7 processor - 4.2 Ghz Quad-Core and Radeon Pro 580 8 GBB

I have a day's worth of 4k Dash Cam videos that are h.264 and separate files that needs to be converted to h.265 and merged into one file.

Using the same software (and this software has not been compiled for the ARM Processor - so it is running in translation based off of X86 instructions in translation mode) and let's just say, that the A12X (which has been crippled by Apple) actually saved 42 minutes off of the rendering time.

Once software has been compiled to take advantage of ARM processing and it's running off the faster A14X, the performance will drastically increase. I am quite impressed. I was expecting the time to be about the same, but was blown away by the speed.

The CPU use was about the same on both - in the 32-38% range. Even though I could multi-task, I decided for comparisons not to do so but on the second run, I did multi-tasking on the A12X and there were no hiccups, delays, or anything slowing it down or opening up a lot of apps.

 

[cmaier]

"Apple Silicon" is a lame name.

Not as lame as “Core” or “penguin.”

 

[aberdeenmeadows]

Apple released the MacBook on the promises by Intel to deliver however they failed miserably - the low powered super CPU never materialised leaving the MB an expensive (light) paper weight. Maybe using Apple silicon they can finally deliver the MB they envisioned...

I didn't realize that Intel didn't deliver on the power sipping for the MacBook - I thought it was across the board on ALL products because Apple's focus is both on power and saving energy and Intel's approach is "I hear ya, but you can't have it all" which is why Intel produces the "M" chip and Apple isn't into buying the "M" chip. Intel is into producing variations of its chip and that is frustrating, too.

Apple is on the right path and they put their money where their mouth is and actually winning. ARM has done a lot of advances in the past two years across the board. Smart move. I would never have ever dreamed in a million years that ARM processors were ever going to be this capable. When the rumors first started, I was about to post a lot of responses poking fun at ARM, but actually went to the ARM website and educated myself and now I am a huge supporter of ARM.

I used to be a huge Motorola fan in the beginning because of the 68000 processor and was upset when Apple dropped them for x86. I used to be a fan of AMD until the i5 and i7 processors came out and starting making a huge impact.

Regardless, there's room on this planet for them all, but let's see what Apple does! We all know, even though Microsoft has begun their ARM transition with one of their Surface devices, they are going to go full-on soon. Once Microsoft goes full-on, we will begin seeing other vendors starting to use ARM more.

 

[jlocker]

I would be very happy to share my experience with you. I can't vouch for the A14X, but I can vouch for the A12X, which comes in the Apple Developer Transition Kit that has 16gb memory and 512gb SSD.

I have a 2018 version iMac 27", 32gb Memory and an i7 processor - 4.2 Ghz Quad-Core and Radeon Pro 580 8 GBB

I have a day's worth of 4k Dash Cam videos that are h.264 and separate files that needs to be converted to h.265 and merged into one file.

Using the same software (and this software has not been compiled for the ARM Processor - so it is running in translation based off of X86 instructions in translation mode) and let's just say, that the A12X (which has been crippled by Apple) actually saved 42 minutes off of the rendering time.

Once software has been compiled to take advantage of ARM processing and it's running off the faster A14X, the performance will drastically increase. I am quite impressed. I was expecting the time to be about the same, but was blown away by the speed.

The CPU use was about the same on both - in the 32-38% range. Even though I could multi-task, I decided for comparisons not to do so but on the second run, I did multi-tasking on the A12X and there were no hiccups, delays, or anything slowing it down or opening up a lot of apps.

That is a very good sign, the key is going to get the Mac Applications running native off of the ASIC processor and not doing a rosetta 2 translation. I was a big fan of the PowerPC RISC processor and with the Power Mac it could whip the Intel processor. So I am planning on getting a new MacBook Pro 16 in 3 years once all the system performance has been tweaked and software has been written for ASIC processing natively.

 

[em500]

I guess I didn't follow the news around the single-port 12" MacBook back in the day. How did it even get used? Constant multi-port adapters and docks? Was the target consumer someone who wouldn't be plugging things in often? Two ports I could live with but one seems crazy.

Plenty of people never need to plug anything into their computers except a charger. I don't know why that would be so surprising. I have used computers every day since the 1980s and haven't used my MB Air USB ports for anything in the past few years. Our work laptops are either in a dock or on the go, the USB port is pretty much only used for a Yubikey. I don't see why they'd need more than one port.

 

[cmaier]

My wife’s 3+ year old MacBook 12” has started overheating and shutting down. just before apple care expired a month or two ago we had the keyboard and battery replaced. This new machine can’t come fast enough.

 

[kevinws]

This is very interesting to me. As I am considering switching back to Apple after being on Android and Chrome OS for quite some time.

I do very simple web-based stuff online so this sounds perfect to me. If the price is right it might push me over for good.