2018 MacBook Pro Reports Say New Apple Chip Will Feature in Three Upgraded Macs This Year
Apple may have decided to forego a full-blown upgrade to its MacBook Pro model for 2018, but that does not stop the tech giant from stepping up the processors of its current designs.
According to a report from Bloomberg, this year, Apple will start using co-processors in at least three devices, which would include both laptops and desktops. It is yet unclear which of the many Apple models will get this new chip, but reports say MacBook Pro and Mac Pro are the best candidates.
Following the recent issues of Intel processors with Meltdown and Spectre, Apple is hoping to take full control of its hardware to do away with these problems all together.
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Apple's first step into this system is to put in a new custom chip in three macOS devices that will be released this year. As there are no new Mac lineups for 2018, Apple will most likely choose among its top devices for the upgrade.
At this stage, it may be too late to overhaul the hardware and replace the Intel-designed CPU, so the chip will instead work as co-processors, and should make the device more stable and more secure.
For better marketing, the Apple-made chip would also bring new features to the chosen models. For example, Apple could extend the general graphics capabilities of the MacBook Pro through dedicated GPUs as well as graphical chips. This way, even though it is not entirely a new model, the device should be able to get sales boost with its "new" features.
If the reports are true, this would not be the first Apple-owned chip from the tech giant. In 2016, it produced two different custom chips for its Mac units. This included the T1 that powered the Touch Bar touchscreen in MacBook pro models. In 2017, Apple released iMac Pro models powered by Apple-made co-processor. This year, Apple could be releasing the T2 generation.
