Apple's possible move from Intel to ARM has been speculated upon since 2011, but the idea has remained dormant until a statement from a former Apple executive revived the idea. Former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée gave new life to the rumors when he wrote in a blog that he "might have been wrong" about the possibility of this move from Intel to homegrown ARM.
"When Apple announced its 4-bit A7 processor, I dismissed the speculation that this could lead to a switch away from intel chips for the Macintosh line for a homegrown 'desktop-class' chip," wrote Gassée in his piece for Quartz. He also said that he now takes back his dismissal on account of three main points: cost-cutting, power shift, and Apple's continued move to "own 'all layers of the stack.'"
Gassée quoted Matt Richman, an Intel intern and Apple stockholder, who said in his 2011 blog "Apple and ARM, Sitting in a Tree," that the move from Apple's partnership with Intel to in-house production of ARM chips is possible. Richman wrote as an opening statement, "I don't know exactly when, but sooner or later, Macs will run on Apple-designed ARM chips."
Richman cited several reasons for the possible switch. At the time, Apple produced A5 chips for mobile, which Apple can easily develop to match the power of a dual core Cortex A9 chip for desktop. Ten A5 chips produce 25% less than the capacity of a Cortex A9 chip for 11% of the power.
Another reason he cited was the cost. An i7 chip that comes with the 15-inch MacBook Pro costs $378, while an in-house ARM chip could only cost $300 to produce. It could mean better performance for lower production rates, resulting to lower retail prices.
Finally, Richman cited a Steve Jobs quote that states his desire to keep every component of their products in-house. "I've always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do," Jobs had said. Gassée noted this, citing that "Apple's drive to own 'all layers of the stack' continues unabated years after Steve's passing. As a recent example, Apple created its own Swift programming language that ocmplements its Xcode IDE and Clang/LLVM compiler infrastructure."
Gassée deduced in his piece the benefits that Apple will gain should they switch to in-house ARM production. More importantly, moving from Intel to in-house ARM production would give Apple the room to experiment on creating a cross between the iOS and the OS X, which consumers have been anticipating, according to Cult of Mac.
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