There have been rumors suggesting Apple has an interest in Arm-based Macs for years now, but speculation about an Arm-based Mac has picked up over the course of the last year following rumors about Apple’s work on its own chips designed for the Mac.
Right now, Apple is reliant on Intel for the processors used across its Mac lineup, but that is perhaps set to change in the future as Apple works to transition over to Arm-based chips similar to the A-series chips used in its iPhones and iPads.
Arm vs. Intel
Right now, Apple uses x86 chips from Intel in all of its Mac products, while its iPhones and iPads use Arm-based chips. x86 chips and Arm chips are built using different architectures.
Intel’s chips are CISC (Complex Instruction Set Architecture) while Arm chips are RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer).
Were Apple to switch from CISC Intel chips to RISC it would likely have a positive impact on power efficiency and compute efficiency for everyday users because most people don’t use applications that take advantage of the more complex instructions of a CISC chip.
Read more at MacRumors.com