Apple Silicon: A Long Game, Changing the Game

We cover the latest coming out of Apple’s event last week, where they announced the first new lineups of devices based on Apple Silicon M1 chips, which officially came out today. And since there’s already plenty of analysis on performance, benchmarks, and more, we cover the big picture: Apple’s moving away from Intel chips, and to their own chips (that run on the Arm instruction set); what does it all mean?

And given our penchant on this show for orienting where we are on the long arc of innovation, a16z board partner and former Microsoft Windows president Steven Sinofsky joins this episode (in conversation with host Sonal Chokshi) to take both a look backwards, and forwards, from this point in time: Beginning first with a quick history of Apple chips spanning decades, and then going into the implications for consumers, developers, future device form factors, and the industry as a whole. Is it the end of a long story... or the beginning?

links and references:

• "The 2020 Mac Mini Unleashed: Putting Apple Silicon M1 to the Test", Andrei Frumusanu, AnandTech, 17 November 2020
• "Apple Announces the Apple Silicon M1: Ditching x86 - What to Expect, Based on A14", Andrei Frumusanu, AnandTech, 10 November 2020
• Apple M1 chip [specs and graphics]

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