Two MacBook Pro models getting mini LED in 2021, MacBook Air in 2022 says Kuo

We keep hearing about mini led - when are we actually going to see it?

I wonder how the economics of Apple Silicon work - nominally, the chips could be cheaper than intel chips, but apple also has to foot the entire bill for R&D as well as the costs of ramping up production. Those costs exist with intel, too, but they’re distributed over intel’s entire customer base.

Since they control the entire design, Apple may also be able to optimize integration with other components leading to easier and cheaper system board design/production. 

MplsP said:

We keep hearing about mini led - when are we actually going to see it?

I wonder how the economics of Apple Silicon work - nominally, the chips could be cheaper than intel chips, but apple also has to foot the entire bill for R&D as well as the costs of ramping up production. Those costs exist with intel, too, but they’re distributed over intel’s entire customer base.

Since they control the entire design, Apple may also be able to optimize integration with other components leading to easier and cheaper system board design/production. 

I’m excited about the future of Apple Si. There’s a few hiccups, but the reviews are quite positive and impressive. I’ll be getting a new laptop in the next year or two and looking forward to an M1 MacBook Pro!

I see where you are coming from but you fail to acknowledge that those R&D and some of those production costs are also distributed on the iPhone & iPads.

Overall, its definitely cheaper, look at the Mac Mini price if you aren't sure. Since when does Apple lower prices while hurting their margins? The removal of the power brick (of which they NEVER included anything beyond 5W to boost margins) from iPhones comes to mind. That was purely a margin boost.

Hello

Will there be a significant price increase to the MacBook Pro 14” with Apple Silicon, or there won’t be any price escalation when compared with the MacBook Pro 13” with M1 chip. 

JMohan said:

Hello

Will there be a significant price increase to the MacBook Pro 14” with Apple Silicon, or there won’t be any price escalation when compared with the MacBook Pro 13” with M1 chip. 

This is creating a lot of confusion, whether I should buy M1 or wait for another year to fall in

Any suggestion will be of very valuable advice to me in my decision to go for it or wait ... for 2 years I have been waiting with the speculation of Apple Silicon, but when it finally came I am so confused n in dilemma. 

Regards - JMohan

Well, you’re asking a question that no one (except Apple) knows the answer to. We don’t even know for sure if there will be a 14” device since this is just a rumor. 

The best information would be from history - Apple typically increases the specs while keeping the price the same and the M1 Air was introduced at the same price as the previous model. I can’t remember how Apple priced the 16” MBP relative to the 15”, but that would probably be a good indicator. 

MplsP said:

We keep hearing about mini led - when are we actually going to see it?

I wonder how the economics of Apple Silicon work - nominally, the chips could be cheaper than intel chips, but apple also has to foot the entire bill for R&D as well as the costs of ramping up production. Those costs exist with intel, too, but they’re distributed over intel’s entire customer base.

Since they control the entire design, Apple may also be able to optimize integration with other components leading to easier and cheaper system board design/production. 

I’m excited about the future of Apple Si. There’s a few hiccups, but the reviews are quite positive and impressive. I’ll be getting a new laptop in the next year or two and looking forward to an M1 MacBook Pro!

Apple only needs to shoulder the chips’ designs, something they already do for iOS devices, the modular way Apple designs its SoCs means the incremental R&D for the Mac chip is rather small. Per unit costs should be significantly lower than intel chips, so I expect either increased profit margins, aggressive pricing, or the addition of expensive high-end technologies the competition can’t match at a reasonable price point, or a combination of these things at various levels of the line up. e.g. aggressive pricing at the entry level, increased margins at the mid-range, killer-tech at the high-end.

The really expensive aspects of making chips, i.e. processes development, manufacturing, etc. are carried by TSMC, not Apple, and distributed across their full range of customers, incl. AMD and others.

It will be interesting to see if Apple, when the inevitable physical boundaries of shrinking structures are reached, will opt to establish its own chip plants to have full control, or if the technology will become sufficiently commoditized that Apple will farm out chip manufacturing to a variety highly competitive companies to further squeeze costs, as they do now with assembly.