Apple reportedly making ARM-based chips for MacBook laptops

The rumor of Apple trying to get rid of Intel is a story that's been going around for a couple of years now. Today the rumor is resurrected in a different form as Bloomberg heard from confidential sources that Apple started developing a new ARM-based chip last year for a future MacBook laptop lineup.

Rather than replacing Intel's processors, this chip will be a more powerful and more integrated version of the chip used in the latest MacBook Pro to power the device's Touch Bar. Codenamed "T310", it's reportedly designed to offload some of the laptop's low-power mode functionality that's currently handled by Intel's Core CPUs. To main benefit here seems to be a further reduction of energy consumption and the ability to more tightly integrate Apple's own hardware and software functions.

Apple engineers are planning to offload the Mac’s low-power mode, a feature marketed as "Power Nap," to the next-generation ARM-based chip. This function allows Mac laptops to retrieve e-mails, install software updates, and synchronize calendar appointments with the display shut and not in use. The feature currently uses little battery life while run on the Intel chip, but the move to ARM would conserve even more power, according to one of the people.

The sources did stress that in the near-term, Apple has no plan to completely abandon Intel CPUs for use in its laptops and desktops.