14 DAY TRIAL // Bloomberg News reports on Monday that Apple is planning to ditch Intel's processors from its Mac computers starting early 2020 and use its own custom chips instead from Intel, according to people familiar with Apple's plans.
According to Bloomberg News’ Ian King and Mark Gurman report, Apple is expected to replace Intel's processors from its Mac computers with its own chips that the Cupertino-based company will develop in the coming years. The change should happen as soon as 2020.
People familiar with the plan told Bloomberg News that Apple has a new project called "Kalamata," which is currently in the early stages of development and it's part of a broader strategy to develop Apple devices, including Macs, iPhone, iPad, etc., that are tightly integrated and work more seamlessly.
It will probably be a huge blow to Intel
This isn't the first time Apple plans to replace the processors in its Macs. It happened before twice, when the company switched from 68K processors to PowerPC, as well as from PowerPC to Intel x86 chips. However, this time, the switch will probably be a huge blow to the Intel Corporation.
Intel already had a bad year with the infamous Meltdown and Spectre security vulnerabilities that put billions of devices powered by modern processors at risk of attacks. All of Intel's chips produced in the past two decades are vulnerable to these hardware bugs, and the company is still trying to patch them all.
Apple is already using its own chips in iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch, and Apple TV products, so it won't be a major surprise for the California-based company to use design, build and use its own custom silicon in future Mac computers. When asked about the "Kalamata" project by Bloomberg News, Apple refused to comment.
On the other hand, and Intel spokesperson said, "We don’t comment on speculation about our customers." So if Apple goes with its plan to abandon Intel's chips from its future Macs, the company will also have to do a lot of redesign to its macOS operating system, which could happen before the rumoured 2020 transition.