Apple held its annual developers conference, Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2020, on 22 June. During the keynote, the company outlined its plan to move away from Intel chips to using its own in the Macs.
The company did not release any new Mac hardware for consumers as of such. However, Apple did release a Developer Transition Kit (DTK) as a rental for $500 – developers will have to return these machines after their work is done or at the end of the transition.
Apple has said that the complete transition will take around two years. If the ARM based Mac Mini DTK is any indication, Macs could get cheaper in the future. The ARM based Mac Mini DTK is much cheaper compared to Apple’s Intel based Mac Mini
It could however also be because its a rental or because Apple wants to keep the price of their developer machine low. Nonetheless, the $799 Intel Mac Mini ships with 8GB of RAM whereas the Apple silicon based Mac Mini ships with 16GB of RAM. The machine is powered by Apple’s A12Z chip found in the iPad Pro.
In the recent past, Macs have turned very expensive and they continue to – some models. However, the price of the MacBook Air did drop but it’s important to note that Apple did not actually reduce the price but packed in a slower i3 processor as a based model to offer a cheaper configuration.
Apple has said that Apple silicon based Macs will be released at the end of 2020. We do not know what types of Macs, Apple will release – laptops or desktops. However, most of the tech analysts bet on the upcoming first ARM based Mac to be a laptop – a MacBook.
Apple could hold its usual October Mac and iPad event to unveil the first Apple silicon Mac.
