The report said that Apple internally prepared a code-named “Kalamata” project, and one of the aims of the project is to make the Mac, iPhone and iPad more similar, more seamless and seamless combination of everything. This project is similar to Apple’s early “Fat Binaries” and “Rosetta” program, when Apple migrated from the 68K processor to the PowerPC processor platform, and then from the PowerPC processor to the x86 processor platform.
As we all know, Apple has designed its own A-series chips for the iPhone and iPad, but little is known about custom-made Mac chips. Bloomberg revealed that Apple’s Mac chip development plan is still at an early stage, and the transition plan will not start until 2020, but the system software will start planning sooner. Therefore, Apple’s transition from Intel chips to Mac custom chips will be divided into multiple steps. It will initially be a “Marzipan” software platform initiative that allows and recommends developers to develop in iOS 12 and Mac OS 10.14. Apps that can run on both iOS and macOS platforms.
By Henriok (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
Obviously, once Apple has its own custom Mac chip, its own Mac product replacement will no longer need to look at Intel’s face, after all, Intel has not only squeezed toothpaste in recent years, but the chip shipment time is always pushing and pushing. Not only that, but Apple is also able to quickly integrate new features based on its own custom Mac chips to make the ecosystem faster.
Bloomberg said that this change will allow Apple to bring new features to all its products faster and distinguish it from competitors. At the same time, once released with a Mac custom chip, Apple will become the only personal computer manufacturer that can use its own processor. In contrast, computer companies such as Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, and Asus only use Intel chips.
Bloomberg also pointed out that by using its own customized Mac chips, Apple will be able to more closely integrate new hardware and software, which may lead to better battery life, similar to the current use of the Apple A series of chips iPad.
Judging from Apple’s current Mac product line, Apple is not a product that does not have an ARM chip, and built-in custom T1 and T2 chips on the new MacBook Pro or iMac Pro. Among them, the T1 chip integrated with MacBook Pro is mainly used for Touch Bar to verify Touch ID. The T2 chip integrated into the iMac Pro includes more components, including a system management controller, an image signal processor, an SSD controller, and a Secure Enclave security partition based on a hardware encryption engine.
According to some news, Apple plans to integrate more customized co-processing chips on the new Mac products introduced at the end of this year, and even the modular Mac Pro that Apple is developing is no exception.
In recent years, a large number of rumored that Apple intends to create a Mac series based on the ARM chip to reduce dependence on Intel. Actually, the rumor basically related to the built-in chip of the device, and neither shows that Apple wants to develop an independent chip to replace the chip of the company. For example modem modems, rumored Apple may also be independent research and development, reducing dependence on Intel and Qualcomm.
In short, regardless of whether the ARM chip Mac really exists, if Apple abandons Intel chip will have a significant impact on the latter, because Apple’s annual purchase of Intel chips accounted for 5% of its annual revenue. After the current news from Bloomberg released, Intel’s share price has fallen by 9.2%, and it has reached the largest drop in more than two years. Intel’s dominance over the computing industry has been unprecedented for nearly a decade, but even Microsoft is collaborating with Qualcomm to create a new category of “always connected PCs.”
