The first Apple Silicon Mac could be a 12-inch MacBook, a replacement for the super lightweight MacBook that existed between 2015-2019. We've thought that the first Apple Silicon Mac would be a thin-and-light laptop ever since Apple first announced that Macs would gradually transition away from Intel.

After all, we're more used to seeing Apple's own chips in iPhones and iPads, so where better to test things out than with a iPad Pro-class Mac. It's fair to say that Pros will still expect Intel hardware at present, so we think rumours that we'll get a 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro replacement based on Apple Silicon are wide of the mark. 

The last ultraportable MacBook bit the dust because of the reduced price and increased performance of the 2018 MacBook Air. The Air has since been revised in 2019 and 2020 as well. 

According to The China Times via MacRumors, the new Mac will use an A14X processor (also expect this in the 2021 iPad Pro) and weigh less than 1kg. Crucially though, the new Mac will be able to offer between 15-20 hours of battery life. We've seen this from other ARM-based PC hardware before - with Windows on Qualcomm Snapdragon - but certainly with early Snapdragon hardware performance wasn't up to snuff. 

Bloomberg also recently reported there are at least three different A14-based Mac processors in the pipeline. The 12 core A14X (eight performance cores, four for more routine tasks) will be produced by Taiwan's TSMC - just like other Apple chips - by the end of 2020.