SILICON: HOW IT WILL REVOLUTIONIZE COMPUTING

At this year’s virtual WWDC, Apple announced plans to move away from Intel-based Macs to custom silicon, perhaps one of the biggest changes to the Mac since its introduction in 1984. By further unifying the hardware and software of Macbooks, Mac Minis and imacs in a similar manner to the iphone, it could revolutionize the way Apple does computing forever…

CHANGING THE GAME

Speaking at June’s Worldwide Developers Conference, held virtually due to the coronavirus pandemic, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook was keen to stress the huge importance of the Mac, and the ways in which it’s changed our world. “The Mac has always embraced big changes to stay at the forefront of personal computing,” he said, before announcing the transition to Apple Silicon. He called the moment a “historic day for the Mac” and teased powerful features and industryleading performance, which would make the Mac even stronger and more capable for future generations. “I’ve never been more excited about the future of the Mac,” he added, putting to bed years of leaks and rumors of Arm-based Mac architecture.

Similar to the A-series chips included in iphones and ipads, Apple’s transition away from Intel does not come without its challenges. Over the years, Apple has grown more and more frustrated with Intel, as the tech giant cannot add new high-end Mac features or bump specs without Intel first announcing, developing, and rolling out their next-generation chip. In news that has been widely reported over the years, Intel has struggled to meet release deadlines, and last year was forced to apologize for its

performance in regards to release schedules. And it’s not just Apple: Dell, too, has expressed frustrations with Intel over delays, admitting that chip delays could impact upcoming hardware releases.

Ultimately, Apple wants to regain control of its Macs and hopes that with Apple Silicon chips, it can. By designing and manufacturing in-house, it can reach new levels of performance and sell Macs that are both more powerful and energyefficient. Whilst Intel’s chips are made for the general market and thousands of PC models, Apple’s chips will be built with macos and the Mac in mind - and optimizations can be made to maximize performance and battery life.

TAKING A LEAF OUT OF THE IPHONE’S BOOK

Apple’s decision to pull away from Intel is unsurprising yet hugely exciting. The company has designed custom chips for the iphone, ipad, and Apple Watch for a number of years, with in-house engineers creating technology that just works. In the past five years, Apple has made some significant gains in processor performance, and today’s iphones are now as powerful as a standard PC. According to leaked benchmarks and analysis from Ming-chi Kuo, the upcoming iphone 12 will be more powerful than a high-end 16-inch Macbook Pro, demonstrating the current disparities between smartphone and PC architecture.

The ultimate aim for Apple is to deliver the best possible performance for its Macs and stand out in today’s crowded PC market. Although Mac shipments grew 5% in Q2 of 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, the overall PC market is

slowing down, and market leaders Lenovo and HP - which both hold around a 25% share of the market each - are way ahead of Apple, whose share of the market fluctuates around the 6% figure. Sure, Apple’s PCS and laptops have a higher price tag and more specific use cases, but the company is redoubling its efforts to grow that. The iphone, for example, has a 13% share of the smartphone market, single-handedly transforming the fortunes of the Cupertino firm. Another reason for Apple to transition to its own chips is to add new custom technologies to give the Mac more capabilities, whether that be integration with other products like Airpods or better security. Deepening the integration with software and hardware worked for iphone - and the same should happen with the Mac. Offering best-in-class security, highperformance graphics, and Neural Engines and Machine Learning Accelerators, these new Macs will have more built-in features than ever before, and as most of the work is done on the chip, it won’t need endless storage or CPU to utilize. Other technologies that Apple has promised to add to the new chip include a high-quality camera processor, as well as an onchip performance controller, a DRAM, unified memory, and cryptography acceleration, out-of-the-box features that optimize macos and ensure professionals and everyday users have what they need. That’s on top of other technologies already part of Macs, like T2 chips which integrate the system management controller as well as the SSD controller, Secure Engine, and Touch ID.

What’s perhaps most interesting to note is that Apple’s already using Arm-based technology