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uring the World
Wide Developer Conference (WWDC) 2020, Apple announced (amongst other thing) that
they will transition the Mac over to its own silicon, starting this year with a
transition phase of 2 years. Apple will continue to support and release new
versions of macOS for Intel-Based Macs for years to come, and has exciting new Intel-Based
Macs in development. Along with this Apple also announced beta version of macOS
11.0 “Big Sur”. This is a big announcement which have a potential to change the
computing world forever.
What Is The Difference Between Intel’s Chip And Apple’s
Chip?
The main
difference lies in the architecture both the chip uses. Apple’s chips are based
on ARM (Advanced RISC Machine) architecture whereas Intel chips is a x86 chip
based on CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer). Both the chips use a widely
different architecture which (simply) means that programs designed to run on
Intel chips cannot just simply run on Apple chips without any extra work. The developers
need to either port their programs for the new chipset or leave the devices
unsupported altogether (which is obviously not a business-friendly move).
Why Apple Decided To Switch To Its Own Silicon?
There is no
official statement from Apple specifically discussing why they decided to make
a switch. However, as the Macs are made so thin and light, they are used to
face many issues related to thermal management, the Intel chips generate so
much heat that without a proper cooling they had to switch to lower frequencies
which definitely decreases performance noticeably. Apple can improve their
thermal management but that will result in increased weight and bulkiness and
also it will create quite a bit of noise. This is not the only factor but it is
a major one. Besides the thermal throttling issue, Apple’s chips are now very
much capable to compete or maybe even outperform Intel’s mobile offerings, and also
as the chips are being designed inhouse, Apple has a great degree of control to
tailor them according to their needs. Along with all this, Apple might be
thinking big for the future market, which I will be discussing further in this
article.
MacOS Bug Sur
MacOS Big Sur
is different for 2 reasons which not a lot of people are noticing outrightly.
The first is, that this version is numbered as “11.0” before this Apple used to
add one to its 10.xx series to specify a new update. I think this change in
version number symbolises that a bigger change is on the way. The second thing is
in the UI elements, especially the “Control Centre” and the “Selection Overlay”
these UI elements look like they are more suitable for a touch-based OS, and
the selection overlays looks like they are taken directly from iPadOS.
What Apple Might Have For Us In The Near Future?
Apple is making their macOS ready to run on an ARM based chipset. Apple is going to make Macs run on ARM based CPU in the coming years. Microsoft is already working on making Windows run on a Snapdragon chip which is also based on ARM with its Surface X product. Microsoft is also going to port its Office line of product to ARM based computers soon on macOS and Windows. And Apple’s latest macOS release looks more like a touch-based system.
Based on all
this my speculation is (and I know it feels like it’s too much out there but)
Apple is going to blur the lines between iPadOS and macOS in the near future
and we might see an iPad running macOS with all the macOS features or a
touchscreen MacBook and maybe our entire computing needs being satisfied with
ARM chips in the future and an end of x86 based machines. But one thing is
sure, if we switch to ARM based computers, we will be entering into an era of
Always On computing and power-efficient-heavy-performing compact machines in
the future.
❤️☮️😎
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