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Comment by chvid | Hacker News Reader

MacMini with an A12 chip. Available now as a part of a developer kit. Will be fun to see what that can do.

I wonder if they could release something to turn iPad Pros into development kits. Would be readily available for a lot of devs.

I wonder what the cost of the transition mini is.

If it's like the switch to Intel then it will be $999 and you have to return it when the real versions come out but you'll get a replacement with one of those real versions. Except with the Intel switch you were shipped a slightly repackaged beige box... and that was 15 years ago so my guess is $1499.

Didn’t that also include a discount on the final replacement equivalent?

Yep it did. I think you could get an iMac for 1000-1500 dollars once they were released to the public.

It's $500. See the press release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-announces-mac-t...

The last time Apple transitioned to a new architecture, the dev kits were loaners you had to give back.

And you most likely will have to be an established developer, meaning you’ll have to have an app in the App Store. Apple’s not gonna give these to people that just want to play around with a new machine.

Yep, confirmed.

https://developer.apple.com/programs/universal/

"Submit a brief application for an opportunity to join the program. Selected developers will receive a link to order the Universal App Quick Start Program from the online Apple Store. Priority will be given to applicants with an existing macOS application, as availability is limited."

Those dev kits ran on P4 processors. IIRC, they later sent all the devs a Core 2 mac pro.

Did anyone.. "lose" them? :D

Based on the Newsroom release [1], cost is $500 and the hardware is a loan.

[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-announces-mac-t...

It is $500 and you have to return it at some point.

And a two year transition period.

That sounds ambitious as the bigger Apple desktop machines are quite powerful. But suppose you could just fit them with multiple chips.

If they keep the desktop thermal budget I have no doubt they could scale up the A series to be just as powerful as any intel chip.

I doubt whether making big chip just for Mac Pro/iMac Pro profitable. Chiplet approach looks like benefitical.

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