Apple CPUs in Mac laptops?
Macs. They break the wallet.
Macs. They aren’t for people with a wallet.
Apple has made their own CPUs for iPhones ever since the iPhone 3G. They have for a number of years beat the flagship Snapdragon CPUs like the 835, 845 and so on. Even if that is just in benchmarks, these are some pretty good CPUs that they use in their phones and tablets. The new Apple A11 Bionic chip can compete with a Macbook Pro now, atleast in single core performance. We have also seen in just 3 years Apple go from making 2 core mobile CPUs, to quad core, to now hexa core. If they can just cram in 8 cores to the iPhone 9/8s, and make them a bit more efficient, will we see iPads in 2019 trading hands with mid range Macbook Pros? Just look up “Apple A11 VS Intel I7” and you will see what I am talking about.
Apple has made changes to architectures before. In 2006 the first Apple PC with an Intel Core CPU came out. On August 28th 2009, PowerPC Macs were discontinued. So is your 2017 Macbook Pro safe until late 2023?
What could this mean to those looking for macs anytime soon either before or after this transition? Well, I would guess that we could see a small drop in prices for lower end Macs. I think for machines like the iMac Pro Apple might want to stick with Intel for the 18 core CPUs and I9s.
The reason I say we might see a small drop in prices is the Macbook Air. If Apple can fit the same hexa-core CPU from the iPhone X into a $300 iPad, they could probably make a Macbook Air that comes in under $700. We have seen Apple do this before. Almost every iPad iteration does the same thing, they take parts from a 6 month old phone and use them to make a budget iOS device in an older design. The 2018 iPad uses the same design as the 2013 iPad Air, making it still not thinner than the iPad Air 2. We even saw it happen with the iPhone SE. The iPhone SE launched at $400 with 6S parts, and can now be found for about a third of that brand new, still being cheaper than a used 6S. The Macbook Air is also long over due for a new design, it has looked the exact same since 2010.
We can look at Tesla as a bit of an example. Tesla makes most of the thousands of parts on their own. That is why they made the Tesla Gigafactory. Making their own parts can not only give them better control over quality and manufacturing process, but also get rid of the mark up that other companies charge. Even if that is just $10 in markups per Macbook, that can net them millions in new profits just in a quarter.
Is this bad? Well it could be depending on your standpoint. This will almost inevitably end hackintosh. But getting cheaper Macbooks is definitely a plus. If Apple wanted to, they could probably introduce a $400-$600 Mac that is perfect for back to school times. This would break them into the price point that is generally dominated by 2nd hand Macbooks while also getting newer technologies into more hands.
