No 50 minutes, then the keynote was over: Apple came in his Event “One more thing” really quick to the point. It was clear from the start that it would be about ARM Macs. After all, Apple had already announced in the summer that the first machines with “Apple Silicon” – as the company calls its own SoCs with a proud chest – will be available before the end of the year. The fact that three machines arrived, including a desktop, was a pleasant surprise.

Fanless into happiness That can’t be said about their design. Apple simply planted its ARM heart in the well-known Intel case. MacBook Air, MacBook Pro with 13 and Mac mini with the brand new M1 chip see their x 86 – confusingly similar to brothers. Well, the MacBook Air for ARM no longer has a fan and a slightly remodeled keyboard. But otherwise everything stays as (recognizable) old.

That was to be expected, even with the switch from the PowerPC architecture to Intel, Apple did not proceed any differently. That is a bit disappointing, as we expect a change like the one with the ARM switch, actually also completely new designs. But we will have to wait for at least until 2021. In general, Apple emphasizes that the transition to Apple Silicon will take several years.

Many small cores in the M1 The machines themselves are particularly attractive because of the M1 processor; Apple has not revealed whether this is based on processor A 14 from the iPhone and iPad Air 4. The comparison values ​​that Apple gave in terms of performance to Intel Macs, but also to PCs with similar prices, sound impressive. Of course, this first requires evidence by means of a benchmark, which the group did not provide as usual. But speed information can often be trusted with ARM devices from Apple. The group is now optimizing its operating system perfectly to its own silicon, which should be no different with macOS 11 aka Big Sur. And Apple’s ARM chips have plenty of raw power.

Eight cores are now playing in the Mac. Four of them are high-performance cores, four are high-efficiency cores, i.e. intended for continuous load. Even the high-efficiency cores are supposedly faster than some Intel Macs in normal operation. This also has to be proven first. But all of this is certainly promising. Apple now doesn’t need Intel, AMD or Nvidia for GPUs. The technology comes with the SoC. Up to 8 graphics cores are integrated, with the cheapest MacBook Air Apple turns one off. The neural machine learning engine is the icing on the cake, as is the new signal processor, which supposedly can get the most out of the (unfortunately still lousy) MacBook webcams.

The Mac remains the Mac That leaves the software side. Here Apple drove up heavy developer guns, from Adobe to popular independent companies such as Panic to gaming developers. Everyone was allowed to express their enthusiasm into the camera – and that is certainly real with native code. However, even if Apple makes it quite easy for developers with various tools, adapting existing apps is associated with work. And the software companies have to do that first. Not everyone has the time and money to do it. The new emulation layer Rosetta 2 for Intel code remains as a transition bridge. Hopefully this runs silently in the background for most apps. It is said to be damn fast and therefore hardly attracts users’ attention. Practice will also show that.

In any case, a start has been made. All in all, it can be said that Apple is working intensively on the future of the computer itself with the ARM Macs. Tablets, smartphones and computers are not growing together again; instead, each type has its own specific advantages. You can see that from the fact that Apple neither came up with the idea of ​​giving the new M1 computers cellular modules, nor giving them a touchscreen. And to be honest, that’s right. The Mac remains the Mac, just accelerated and optimized. And since Apple now has its chip development completely in-house, users no longer have to wait for Intel. Thats something. (bsc)