The Future of the Mac
By: Robert C.
Tags: Apple, Productivity, Design, Business, Technology

There is a new type of Mac in the pipeline, and it will run on Apple Silicon.

Apple Silicon is the name Apple will be using for their custom made ARM-based chips that will be transitioning over to the next two years.

At WWDC Apple revealed a Mac mini as the first such Mac to have an Apple Silicon chip inside, and this was an Apple A12Z, the same chip as inside the iPad Pro 2020 — but this Mac mini is only for developers.

When will the first Silicon Mac be available for the public?

Apple said that the first MacBook with an Apple Silicon chip will arrive by the end of 2020. It seems like this new Mac will be either the 12-inch MacBook or a new 13-inch MacBook Pro, or even a MacBook air.

First off, the first model believed to have the Silicon chip is the revival of the 12-inch Mac that was retired in 2019.

The specs on this thing are expected to be quite impressive. It’s supposed to feature the new A14X chip, alongside the option to upgrade from an 8gb to a 16gb RAM and between 256gb and 500gb of storage.

The most impressive claim is the battery life of up to 20 hours, 8 hours more than the previous MacBook Air.

It is looking likely that the A14X chip is going to be amazing! If the 12-inch MacBook is this chip, it’ll probably be just a smudge slower than the 13-inch MacBook Pro and you’re paying approximately $1000 less.

People thought for some time that Apple could bring this older retired Mac as the first ARM-powered Silicon Mac, and with recent rumors, this might actually be the case.

Before jumping into specs and how powerful this new chip will be, let’s talk about the price!

Prices

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

KOMIYA (credible leaker) on Twitter claimed that the new Silicon Mac will cost just $800, but very soon after he deleted the tweet and this information just became a whisper online. However, this leaker came back with another statement saying this MacBook will start at $849 ($800 for students).

This would get you a basic model of the MacBook with 8gb of RAM and 256gb of storage.

For the release date of the MacBook, this is where information conflicts quite a bit. It was thought that the MacBook 12-inch would’ve been announced at the Apple Event in September, and released in October — but it wasn’t.

Then it was recently believed that it may be announced in the October iPhone 12 event on October 13th — and it wasn’t.

My own thoughts are that we will see another announcement of the MacBook Silicon in mid-November. Apple will probably want to show more of what its A14 variant can do with Mac OS software and also show some developers showing off their new software running on the chip.

I believe the MacBook Silicon 12-inch model will be released end of November.

Following the initial Silicon MacBook — leaker Ming-Chi Kuo believes the next MacBook to gain an Apple Silicon processor will actually be the MacBook Pro-13-inch, and we’ll get a release date at the end of this year. The next MacBook would be the Air and that is looking to be coming out early next year.

After these two new MacBooks, Kuo suggests the next to come is the 16-inch MacBook Pro, along with a rumored 14-inch MacBook.

According to Kuo they’re supposed to be getting a redesigned look as well. This redesign is something we’re expecting to see in 2021.

These new MacBook Pro models aren’t expected to ship until the middle of 2021.

What about the iMac?

3D renderings of what the new iMacs could look like (based on leaks)

There really haven’t been many leaks regarding the desktop Mac. What we know for now is that they’re supposed to be coming out with a complete redesign reducing the bezel size and potentially giving the new generations more superior specs.

It seems like they’ll retain Intel processors for now. iMac are not likely to come with Apple Silicon until 2021, potentially even 2022.