At Apple’s special WWDC event today (streaming virtually for the first time) Apple announced Mac is moving from Intel processors to custom Apple Silicon.
Apple says the goal of Apple Silicon was to make Macs more powerful but with less power consumption. The move is based on 10 generations of the Apple iPhone chips and iPad SoCs starting with the A5X in retina screen models.
Apple has also rebuilt all their apps to run native on the Apple Silicon SoC to make use of the processing power, including high-demand graphic applications such as Final Cut Pro.
In addition, Adobe apps such as Photoshop, Autodesk’s Maya, Microsoft’s Word, and some games like Shadow of the Tomb Raider are being updated to run on the Apple SoC. xCode and Universal 2 are the systems developers will work with to update and create new apps for Apple Silicon.
The new Macs with Apple Silicon allow a shared architecture across devices, creating a new “family” of Mac SoCs.
What might be most exciting about the transition to Apple Silicon is that apps made for iPhone and iPad will be able run native on the Mac with no modifications to the apps necessary. Apple showed a demo of Monument Valley 2 and Fender Play running on Mac.
Apple will be shipping Mac mini desktops with A12Z SoC, macOS Big developer beta and Xcode to developers starting soon in the Developer Transition Kit.
The company expects the transition to Apple Silicon to take about two years.
