Remember Apple’s controversial move from PowerPC to Intel processors? Ready for Cupertino to shake things up once again? A new rumor claims the company may be looking at a transition from Intel to ARM processors “in the not too distant future.”
MacRumors is reporting that Apple may be looking at yet another processor jump. According to SemiAccurate, Cupertino may be looking to transition from Intel processors to ARM processors as early as mid-2013.
“The short story is that Apple is moving the laptop line, and presumably desktops too, to ARM based chips as soon as possible,” the report claims, elaborating that the actual transition is based on ARM moving to full 64-bit cores first.
“At that point, Apple can move to ARM without worrying about obsoleting code with an [instruction set architecture] that is on the verge of changing, and no memory overhead worries either,” the report continues. “Basically, it looks like the perfect time. Ironically, SemiAccurates moles tell us that the boys on Infinite Loop are planning to move laptops to ARM at about that time. Coincidence? Nope.”
ARM processors currently power Apple’s iOS line of products, and the company has made “a heavy investment” in the architecture, including the acquisition of both P.A. Semi and Intrinsity, bringing their ARM processor design in-house.
For what it’s worth, MacRumors doesn’t seem to be buying the rumor. “Mac applications would have to be recompiled to support the ARM processors,” Arnold Kim muses, claiming that an Intel to ARM transition for the Mac would be much more complicated than the company’s successful transition from PowerPC to Intel.
MacRumors also notes that SemiAccurate doesn’t often speculate on Apple products, but the website did have one coup, in “predicting that Apple would move away from NVIDIA GPUs in their computers.” So, take that for what it’s worth…
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