This was originally published on 2020-06-21.

There are lots of rumors that Apple is working to transition away from Intel CPUs to use in house ARM based CPUs. Apple has already been shipping something called the Apple neural engine as part of their integrated CPU/GPU offering for iPhone and iPads. If Apple is going to replace the CPU in the Mac then it is probably going to be replacing the hardware GPUs also.

Changing a CPU architecture is not easy and it takes time. Introducing an Apple designed GPU for MacBookPros/MacPros/iMacs is more feasible in the short term.

I believe Apple is working to replace AMD video cards in the MacBookPros/MacPros/iMacs and thus place itself as the premier gaming/entertainment center.

Since iPhone Apple has designed their own GPUs for their iPhones; It should not take much for these same designed to be retrofired for the mac. Once the GPU is Apple controlled, it would not take much to replace the CPUs on the mac again. They can choose to do this at the same time since the integrated chip in the iPhones contains CPU/GPU/NeutralEngine. Now everybody is assuming that the CPU is going to be ARM architecture. The could be PowerPC based or RISC-V. Who knows?!

I am just not sure if more powerful macs are in Apple's interest anymore. We've seen Apple leave the professional market already when they stopped making server racks. Phones are becoming so powerful that it almost makes no sense to have separate devices when it comes to people being able to do work at home. Another big thing is that VR is really starting to take over the world. The next iPhone could be the VR phone of the future. Imagine the iPhone commercialized as the premier gaming platform of the future? It could happen, specially if they keep making their phones with the same chipsets that are on par with some laptops. The multiple physical cameras is not a coincidence, nor is the lidar system that showed up in the newest iPad. They are getting ready for real time tracking for games/VR/AR.

Apple is going to try eat Nintendo's lunch when it comes to next generation games. It's going to be something between VR headset and HoloLens.

Written in 2020, before Apple announced the M1 and years before Apple Vision Pro. I revisited what this prediction got right, what it missed, and why the center of gravity moved toward AI infrastructure in From Apple Silicon to NVIDIA AI Factories.