13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with ARM-based processors coming out later this year
Last month, Apple unveiled a plan to move to its own ARM-based processors, a process that is officially given two years. It was expected that the first models of laptops on their own single-chip platforms will appear in the second half of next year, but according to new data, they may come out as early as this year!
Apple will get rid of Intel processors faster than expected
Taiwanese component suppliers say they have already started shipping lighting systems and other components for the next-generation MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, so they may come out much earlier than previously expected.
If Apple launches 13-inch MacBook Pros and MacBook Airs on its own CPUs by the end of this year, then a total of 16-17 million devices will be shipped by the end of the year, compared to 14.5-15.5 million MacBooks shipped a year earlier.
The Taiwanese source is confident the 13-inch ARM-based MacBook Pro and MacBook Air will ship by the end of 2020. And this confidence almost coincides with the forecast of KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who expects these devices to appear either in late 2020 or in the first quarter of 2021. TSMC, Apple’s technology partner, is believed to have started production of new SoCs for Apple laptops using the 5 nm process technology in small quantities in the first half of this year. Next year, the production volume of these SoCs will increase.
Interestingly, the source is confident in the parallel existence of both the new MacBook Air and the 13-inch MacBook Pro on ARM platforms, although according to other sources, switching to their own processors will make these models so similar that one of them will no longer make any sense. At the same time, the move to ARM SoCs may lead to the fact that Apple laptops fall in price.
