Rumors have pointed to potentially two Apple Silicon-based laptops this year, the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro 13-inch, but a new Apple Silicon roadmap from regular Apple leaker @komiya_kj gives a much more detailed picture as for when to expect each device to make its full transition. Unfortunately, it is going to frustrate a lot of Apple fans (via NotebookCheck).
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Knowing that Apple wants this entire transition done in two years helps to winnow down this prediction, and we don’t have enough data on Komiya’s predictions just yet to include them in our look at the most reliable leakers. That being said, the standard grain of salt warning definitely applies here, but if true, this is going to mean a long wait for those wanting to upgrade to devices with Apple Silicon inside. The most notable piece of this roadmap is that no MacBook line will fully convert to Apple Silicon in 2021. Only the iMac and MacBook Pro 16-inch are switching “partly,” which presumably means at least one model with Apple Silicon while more traditional Intel options remain. This puts a lot of pressure on 2022 to deliver new Apple Silicon-based iMac Pros, Mac Pros and possibly Mac Minis along with the rest of the MacBook Pro 16-inch and iMac models. We’ve seen impressive benchmarks already from the Apple Silicon Developer Transition Kits that are essentially Mac Minis powered by Apple Silicon, so the early evidence points to Apple being on pretty solid ground from a hardware standpoint up to at least its mid-tier hardware. But the questions of how well it will be able to deliver at the top-end and, perhaps more importantly, how the software transition will go, remain unanswered for now. A previous rumor outlining Apple’s fall release schedule pointed to October 27 as the big reveal event for the MacBook and 13-inch MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon, so we may get some further insight into the timeline for the transition from Apple itself in just a couple of months.
