M1: Apple reveals first Mac chip it has designed itself

(Apple)

Apple has revealed the M1, the first ever Mac chip that it has designed itself.

The company said that the M1 is the most efficient chip in the world, and that it had made major improvements in the power usage as well as performance of the hardware, when compared with the Intel processor it replaces.

It will arrive in a new MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and Mac Mini, each of which Apple claimed offer vastly improved performance when compared to their Intel-based predecessors.

Apple had announced in June that it would move away from that Intel architecture, and towards “Apple Silicon” – chips designed in-house and made by ARM. But at an event live-streamed from its Apple Park campus, it finally revealed the M1 chip that will mark the beginning of that transition.

It has an eight-core CPU, featuring the fastest CPU core, and an integrated GPU with the the fastest graphics processing, Apple said.

Jonny Srouji, the company’s senior vice president of hardware technologies, who leads the development of the chips, said that it was the most powerful chip Apple had ever made.

In addition to the new hardware, Apple’s Big Sur operating system has been designed specifically for the hardware, Apple’s software chief Craig Federighi said.

The computer can instantly wake from sleep, just like the iPhone and iPad, Mr Federighi said during Apple’s “One More Thing” event. Apps and the system itself run much more quickly on the new hardware, he claimed.

Apple said that its own apps run much better on the hardware. Its music app Logic Pro can run three times more tracks, for instance, and video editing app Final Cut Pro can use six times as many video feeds.

Mr Federighi also noted that the new chip will allow “universal apps” – versions of apps that can run on both iOS devices such as the iPad and Macs, taking advantage of the fact that they use the same fundamental technologies.

Apple is also offering a system called Rosetta, which will allow the new chips to run software that was designed for the old Intel chips.

Apple said the M1 had been designed for “Mac systems in which small size and power efficiency are critically important”. As such, it will presumably offer a new version of the chip for its Mac Pro and perhaps its larger MacBook Pro, and the company suggested that new computers will be announced next year.