Apple’s New Macs Will Be Powered By Its Own Chips

TOPLINE

Apple will switch to using its own processors for some of its Mac devices, replacing Intel’s CPUs, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced during a keynote address at the company’s 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference.

KEY FACTS

Key Background

Apple’s move to its own chips signals the beginning of the end of its partnership with Intel, which began in 2006, as the then Steve Jobs-led company moved away from IBM’s PowerPC chips. Bloomberg notes that the move to Intel chips helped Apple close the gap with more powerful Windows PCs. However, the company was also working on its separate line of more energy-efficient but less powerful in-house processors based on the ARM architecture. These were eventually used on the iPhone and iPad. In recent years, the speed and efficiency of Apple’s chips have improved significantly, while Intel’s progress has stalled. Bloomberg had reported back in 2018 that Apple planned to move away from Intel CPUs.