Apple's secret processor plans

A paradigm shift is coming to the Mac, and the clues point in two very tantalising directions…

- ALEX BLAKE

Few things in life are as inscrutable as Apple’s future plans. The Cupertino giant jealously guards its secrets from prying eyes, hoping to spring its next batch of products on an unsuspecting public with maximum fanfare.

Which is why it’s so surprising that there is so much chatter in the rumour mill surrounding Apple’s upcoming processor strategy. One or two reports wouldn’t be surprising, but the veritable avalanche of supply chain whispers that has affronted Apple watchers in recent months is hard to ignore. Something big is coming for future Macs, the scale of which we only see once a decade. But to understand where Apple is heading, we need to know where it stands right now.

Why things are changing You wouldn’t know it just from the surface, but all is not well between Apple and Intel. The two tech giants have worked together on Apple’s Macs in an official capacity since 2005, when Apple announced to the world that it would switch from PowerPC processors to Intel’s x86 chips.

The partnership has been fruitful for a long time, but in recent years the relationship has started to come under strain. Intel has repeatedly struggled to meet deadlines set by Apple for supplying internal components. We’re not just talking a few days late here and there – the delays have been so significant that Apple has often been forced to launch Macs with outdated processors. The MacBook Air, for example, has only just got Intel’s 10th-generation Ice Lake processors, despite those chips being available since August 2019. Its previous version, launched in July 2019, was stuck on 8th-gen chips – not even 9th-generation parts – because Intel was so far behind schedule.