Apple Announces ‘Historic Day for Mac’, with Move to Custom Apple Chips [u]

Apple has announced it is now bringing its custom-made in-house chips to the Mac, calling it a “truly historic day for the Mac,” according got CEO Tim Cook.

Apple says it wants to bring maximized performance and lower power consumption to the Mac, allowing the platform to make it “better than before”.

The company is creating a family of system-on-chips (SoCs) for the Mac to allow the company to build “much better” products greater leaps forward, similar to what has already been underway for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.

Technology built into macOS Big Sur will make for a seamless transition over to custom Apple silicon. This means all Apple apps within macOS Big Sur and its pro apps are now native to support for Apple’s new silicon.

Apple says developers can just open Xcode and just recompile their apps for custom Apple silicon in “just days”. Apple introduced a new Universal 2 binary, allowing developer apps to support both Apple silicon and also Intel.

Microsoft already has Office running natively for custom Apple silicon, with all apps running “great”. Adobe Creative Cloud is also working with Apple’s custom silicon and were demonstrated to work great.

Apple says they are trying hard to make the transition “seamless” for users and make apps work on “day one”. MacOS Big Sur will include Rosetta 2, to automatically translate apps for Apple silicon.

A new quick start program will enable developers to quickly make their apps support Apple silicon, along with new Developer Transition Kit hardware, in the form of a Mac mini with an A12Z inside and 16GB RAM, 512G SSD. Units will ship out this week when developers apply for the program, which will cost $500 USD, or $669 CAD in Canada.

Apple says the first Macs with Apple silicon will come before the end of this year, while the company believes the transition will take two years. Apple also said new Intel-based Macs are coming this year still.

“From the beginning, the Mac has always embraced big changes to stay at the forefront of personal computing. Today we’re announcing our transition to Apple silicon, making this a historic day for the Mac,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “With its powerful features and industry-leading performance, Apple silicon will make the Mac stronger and more capable than ever. I’ve never been more excited about the future of the Mac.”

…more to follow