[ttul]

They’ll do it on a select model or two. By passing on some of the cost savings to purchasers, they will drag the market along with them as they gradually replace Intel. I would guess that they target the MacBook Air first, because there are likely large power-performance benefits in that form factor. They will build multiple processor targeting into the default build process in Xcode and will invest a great deal of effort and time into ensuring that app developers are well supported with the targeting of ARM.

They did this before with the move to Intel from PPC. And back then, Apple was a great deal smaller.

[ghaff]

Or the (currently discontinued) MacBook. The evidence (and logic) suggests that Apple is on a path to reconverge their tablet and at least a portion of their laptop line. Which would be interesting to me if the merged device didn't have too many compromises given that I typically travel with an iPad and some sort of laptop (whether MacBook Pro or Chromebook).

[clairity]

yes, and in addition, the ipad pro is being developed into a viable low- to mid-tier option that's even more mobile (for video, AR/VR, and whatnot). a perusal of geekbench shows that ARM is performance/efficiency competitive already.

but the transition will likely be more gradual (for instance, replacement times for computers are longer now), so x86 macs should stay around for a long while i think.

[jmnicolas]

> By passing on some of the cost savings to purchasers

We're talking about Apple here. I expect the new machines to have less perf but be as expensive as before.