“We are giddy”—interviewing Apple about its Mac silicon revolution
In a conversation shortly after the M1 announcement with Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi, SVP of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak, and SVP of Hardware Technologies Johny Srouji, we learned that—unsurprisingly—Apple has been planning this change for many, many years. Ars spoke at length with these execs about the architecture of the first Apple Silicon chip for Macs (the Apple M1).
When Apple first announced its plans to launch the first Apple Silicon Mac this year, onlookers speculated that the iPad Pro's A12X or A12Z chips were a blueprint and that the new Mac chip would be something like an A14X—a beefed-up variant of the chips that shipped in the iPhone 12 this year. When potential users look at M1 benchmarks and wonder how it's possible that a mobile-derived, relatively low-power chip is capable of that kind of performance, Apple points to UMA as a key ingredient for that success.
