Apple M1 and a little history

Apple is outside of my usual area of coverage, but today marks my first contribution to the BI Intelligence briefing, and it’s a write up of Apple’s launch of the M1 processor.

The timing is coincidental—and ironic—because I was covering Apple at News.com the last time the company went through an OS and chip transition. Indeed, one of the first pieces I wrote after Apple acquired NeXT Software in 1996 was about the NeXT operating system and how it could enable Apple to migrate from the PowerPC architecture to Intel’s x86 architecture.

One of the reasons I remember is because several Mac devotees took the time remark on my objectivity and intelligence (among other things). That’s putting it mildly, of course. Many of the readers could be disarmed by simply noting that the article was written on an Apple PowerBook.

It took a while, but Apple did (finally) fully realize a plan to migrate to Intel chips with the introduction of OS X in 2005.

And so now 15 years on from that momentous occasion, Apple is designing its own chips based on the ARM architecture. This time around, there aren’t any doubts about Apple as a viable company, and the company has both its own applications and a huge ecosystem of iOS applications that can run on the newest macOS release, Big Sur, due out on November 12th.

Now that history has come full circle, I’m looking forward to seeing what this next generation of chips will enable Mac users to do in the years to come.