January 2022 • Macworld 25

W

hen Apple released

the M1 chip at the end

of last year, we were

blown away by the

speed improvements over its Intel

predecessors. A year later Apple did

it again with the M1 Pro and M1 Max

and rumours suggest that the next

generation will be an even bigger leap.

If you thought the first chips were fast, just wait until the next

generation. Michael Simon reports

Apple silicon’s epic

first year was nothing

compared to what’s next

Here’s how the Apple silicon transition

has gone so far – and where it’s going.

M1: DECEMBER 2020

Apple’s current M1 processor is based

on the 5nm A14 chip the first arrived

in the iPad Air and later the iPhone 12.

It has 4 high-performance cores with

192 KB of L1 instruction cache and 128