Over the weekend an Apple Leaker has claimed that during the ‘Time Flies’ event on September 15th as well as announcements on a new iPhone, iWatch and more, Apple are planning to announce an Arm Based 14-Inch MacBook Pro too.
‘Appleseeder’ in a Reddit thread is claiming that Apple will announce a 14 Inch Arm powered MacBook Pro. It will be the same size as the 13.3” MBP but with slimmer bezels to accommodate the larger screen and the price of the 14-inch MBP will be the same as the current 13.3-inch Intel powered MacBook Pro.
The leaker is also claiming that the internal GPU, which will be a SoC (System on Chip, which means the GPU and processors will all be on one chip) in the unit will be comparable to the Radeon Pro 5500M and that the overall performance metrics of the upcoming 14-inch will be in line with the current 16-inch MacBook Pro. As to the other specs, it is predicted that it will have an A14 processor, 8GB of DDR4 RAM, and 4 USB ports.
It is claimed that the gaming experience will be exceptional, but only for games optimized for Apple Silicon.
If Apple does announce the 14-inch Apple Silicon MacBook Pro at the Time Flies event then ‘Appleseeder’ is claiming it will start shipping late September or early October.
What Would This Be Like As A Pro Audio Machine?
It’s early days and information is limited, but as we have discussed in other Apple Silicon related articles the power of the Apple Arm based SoC equipped laptops will be significant. Obviously Apple Logic Pro users will have a head start as once Big Sur is released Logic Pro will be able to run natively on Apple Silicon. Other DAWs will have to run on emulation until the developers produce an Apple Silicon Native version, but even running under emulation the performance looks promising, but to be sure, we will have to wait and see.
To learn more check out our article Apple Silicon - How This Will Affect You And Other Audio Professionals