Apple Unveils New Macs With Proprietary M1 Chip

Apple pulled back the curtain on a new era of Mac during a recent livestream event, where the tech company showed off a new slate of computers powered by its Apple Silicon processor.

These devices come equipped with Apple's Silicon chip, which the company has called M1 for the sake of naming convention. (Apple's other chips follow similar naming patterns, including the latest A14 Bionic that's found in the new iPad Air and iPhone 12 lineup.) The M1 processor is an SoC (system on chip) developed and manufactured by Apple that does a number of beneficial things for the end-user, such as improving performance and battery life.

According to Apple, the chip is built with 5-nanometer processing technology and constructed of 16 billion transistors, making M1 efficient and powerful. The Macs that have this new M1 chip include the Mac Mini (starting at $699), Macbook Air (starting at $999), and Macbook Pro (starting at $1299). These devices are now available to order from Apple and will start shipping next week. The company confirmed all Macs will transition to M1 in the future.

Also during the livestream, Apple announced that the latest macOS update, Big Sur, launches worldwide on Thursday, November 14.