Apple is reportedly planning to show off three new MacBooks with Apple Silicon at its virtual 'One more thing' launch event next week.
Apple on Monday announced plans for a 10 November virtual event, and it's widely-expected that the company will show off its first MacBooks to ship with a custom ARM-based CPU.
Bloomberg has some more information about we we can expect, and reports that Apple is gearing up to launch new 13-inch MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro and 16-inch MacBook Pro laptops.
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The report claims that the MacBooks will not feature any dramatic design changes beyond the new CPU, which looks likely be based on the A14 Bionic chip that powers Apple’s iPhone 12 lineup and iPad Air 4.
Based on a 5nm process, the ARM-based CPU is expected to deliver a number of improvements over the Intel processors that currently power Apple’s MacBooks.
At WWDC, Apple said its custom Apple Silicon will equip Macs with "industry-leading" performance-per-watt, higher-performance GPUs and improved power efficiency" compared to Intel chips.
Bloomberg notes that the two rumored 13-inch MacBooks are further ahead in production than the 16-inch model and says at least those two devices will be shown off at the event next week. This suggests the later may fail to make an appearance until the new year.
Apple has a bunch of other ARM-based hardware in the works that’s also unlikely to show up on 10 November , Bloomberg reports. It claims the company is also working on a new iMac and Mac Pro powered by Apple Silicon, and says the latter will be half the size of the current Mac Pro.
It’s not clear when those Macs will arrive, but Apple has given itself a two-year timetable for the transition away from Intel.
