APPLE’S TRANSITION
Two-year plan unveiled
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APPLE’S DECISION to ditch x86 processors and move to ARM-based chips for all its machines has caused a stir. Now we are starting to get an idea of what’s in store as development kit is distributed, based around the existing A12Z Bionic chip, along with beta software. There are no meaningful direct benchmarks yet, its not the final hardware, or software, and there’s lots of emulation going on. However, developers have been impressed. Apple’s new iPad Pro already runs an A12Z chip, and it’s no slouch, holding its own against a MacBook Pro armed with a Core i5-8257. The next version will be based around this, although exact details are still fuzzy. We can expect a SoC version with more cores, higher frequencies, and integrated GPU. Some analysts are predicting performance hikes of between 50 and 100 percent when ARM MacBooks land.