Apple launches Mac mini, MacBook Air and Pro with iPhone-like chips

First M1-based Macs promise big leap in performance and battery life after ditching Intel chips

Apple has announced the first in its series of ARM-powered Mac computers with the new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini, as it begins the transition from traditional Intel processors to those that run in the iPhone.

The new machines mark the first stage of Apple's huge effort to change the underlying technologies of its Mac computers, replicating the switch it made from PowerPC to Intel processors in 2006, but this time to chips of its own design as used to great effect in the firm's iPhones and iPads.