karmadave

I remain skeptical. Not because I don't think Apple can pull this off. They've done it 2x before so clearly they can. Consumers probably won't notice any difference other than better battery life, etc. Will large corporations buy any laptop that doesn't have an x86 compatible processor? Clearly they buy lots of iPhones and iPads so perhaps. Fortunately for Apple the Mac is a small portion of their overall revenue so the risk is relatively small. Especially compared to their last major transition when Mac was the majority of their revenue. This is a multi-year adventure so it will be interesting to follow Apple's progress.

I'm still skeptical that Apple's ARM designs will 'replace' and not 'augment' Intel in the Macintosh. However, one thing that ARM does give Apple is the ability to design it's own iOS and iPadOS compatible CPU without having to licensing or royalties to chip 'monopolies' such as Intel. IDK. Maybe Apple will use this as an opportunity to 're-imagine' the computing platform for the next 10-15 years. Certainly leveraging the mobile platform, is a good start, and incorporating 5G into ALL their platforms could be very interesting as well. Like a lot of people, I will be watching the WWDC20 keynote with keen interest this year.

I hope Apple can pull off an ARM-based Mac, but call me skeptical. On a 12" light, thin machine like the defunct 'MacBook' sure. On higher end Macs? Again I am extremely skeptical. Two things Apple has going for it:
1. They have successfully done processor transitions before (Motorola 6X00 ---> PowerPC & PowerPC ---> Intel)
2. Large catalog of iPadOS apps and large developer community.

Other questions. Would an ARM-based Mac have a touchscreen? Would Apple completely abandon Intel processors? 

Guess more to be revealed soon 🤔

Full disclosure. I formerly worked at Apple and now work at Dell. My personal system is a MacBook Pro while my work system is of course Dell (Latitude 7400). It's always amazed me that Apple could take essentially a single platform and sell it to both Consumer and Business customers. There is some limited configurability, but it's essentially the same product. Dell, and other PC manufacturers build products (and brands) for specific market segments such as Consumer, General Business, Education, and Workstation. The new XPS15 and XPS17 are 'crossover' platforms that share most of the same components with their Workstation counterparts, the Precision 5550 and 5750. These products are also 'certified' to run specific technical apps from Autodesk, Adobe, Dassault, Synopsis, Cadence, etc. and have a few more CPU and GPU options.  

From strictly a hardware perspective, Apple and Dell both have their strengths, weakness, and the choice is increasingly based on user preference. What really differentiates these platforms are the 'ecosystems' that both reside in. Dell is firmly in the Microsoft ecosystem, although the XPS 15 and 17 can run many of the widely available Linux distributions. Dell also bundles optimizer software, on Business laptops. Since Apple writes the operating system they can add such features directly into the OS. The primary Mac differentiator is that Apple engineers and builds both the Hardware & Operating System + a few 1st party applications. This gives the user a more unique experience, but tends to limit the choice of options. Dell laptops also tend to be more serviceable as components are more easily added/swapped and user accessible. I know this site is devoted to Apple, but I am happy to answer Dell-related questions 

This seems consistent with Apple wanting to sell more product in India which does have some local content laws. Diversifying Global Supply Chains and Manufacturing has got to make business sense. Remember, corporations operate in the interests of their shareholders and customers. Whoever said India is a '3rd world country' obviously is laking a complete picture. While it's not the US, or Western Europe, it certainly is developing a modern economy. It's also the world's largest Democracy...