Developers Begin Receiving Mac Mini With A12Z Chip to Prepare Apps for Apple Silicon Macs

As part of WWDC last week, Apple announced that it will be switching to its own custom-designed processors for Macs starting later this year. As part of this transition, the company is allowing developers to apply for a modified Mac mini with an A12Z chip and 16GB of RAM to develop and test their apps on a Mac with Arm-based architecture.

As noted on Twitter and in the MacRumors forums, some developers are now beginning to receive this Mac mini, which is officially known as the "Developer Transition Kit."

mac mini developer transition kit photo

Image Credit: Axel Roest

Apple promises that its Macs with custom chips will have industry-leading performance per watt. Apple said it plans to ship the first Mac with its own silicon by the end of the year and complete the transition in about two years. One of the first Apple Silicon Macs will be a redesigned 24-inch iMac in late 2020, according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Apple said that it will continue to support and release new versions of macOS for Intel-based Macs for years to come, and it also confirmed that it still has some new Intel-based Macs in development in the interim.


Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro Render Front Page Tech

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. iPhone 17 Pro's alleged design via Front Page Tech Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone...
iCloud General Feature Redux

iPhone Users Who Pay for iCloud Storage Receive a New Perk

Thursday March 20, 2025 12:01 am PDT by
If you pay for iCloud storage on your iPhone, Apple has a new perk for you, at no additional cost. The new perk is the ability to create invitations in the Apple Invites app for the iPhone, which launched in the App Store last month. In the Apple Invites app, iCloud+ subscribers can create invitations for any occasion, such as birthday parties, graduations, baby showers, and more. Anyone ...
Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock

iOS 19 Coming in June With These New Features

Thursday March 20, 2025 2:04 pm PDT by
While the first iOS 19 beta is still more than two months away, there are already plenty of rumors about the upcoming software update. Below, we recap the key iOS 19 rumors so far. visionOS-Like Design In January, the YouTube channel Front Page Tech revealed a redesigned Camera app that is allegedly planned for iOS 19. According to Front Page Tech host Jon Prosser, the Camera app...
iOS 18

Top 5 New Features Coming in iOS 18.4

Friday March 21, 2025 3:26 pm PDT by
We're not getting new Siri Apple Intelligence features in iOS 18.4 as expected, but the upcoming update does have quite a few new additions that will be worth upgrading for. We've rounded up the five best features to look forward to, and if you're not running the beta, you can expect to get access to these in early April. Priority Notifications If you have an iPhone or iPad that supports...
airpods pro 2 gradient

AirPods Pro 3 Launch Now Just Months Away: Here's What We Know

Tuesday March 18, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Despite being released over two years ago, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 continue to dominate the wireless earbud market. However, with the AirPods Pro 3 expected to launch in 2025, anyone thinking of buying Apple's premium earbuds may be wondering if the next generation is worth holding out for. Apart from their audio and noise-canceling performance, which are generally regarded as excellent for...
Generic iOS 18

Apple Seeds iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 Release Candidate With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music and More

Monday March 24, 2025 10:07 am PDT by
Apple today seeded the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming a week after Apple released the fourth betas. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software Update. With iOS 18.4, Apple is adding the Priority Notifications...
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Iridescent Search

Foldable iPhone Expected to Launch Next Year, Costing Around $2,000

Monday March 24, 2025 3:43 am PDT by
Apple will launch its long-rumored foldable iPhone next year with a ~$2,000 premium price tag attached, expects well-connected Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman. Gurman's comments on Apple's launch plans for its first foldable device appeared in the Q&A section of his latest Power On newsletter. Earlier this month, the reporter said Apple's foldable iPhone could be arriving "as early as 2026,"...
Windows Vista

Apple Might Be Having Its Windows Vista Moment, Says Analyst

Thursday March 20, 2025 6:52 am PDT by
Is Apple experiencing a "Vista-like drift into systemically poor execution?" That was a question posed by well-known technology analyst Benedict Evans, in a recent blog post covering Apple's innovation and execution, or seemingly lack thereof as of late. He is referring to Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, which was widely criticized when it launched in 2007 due to software bugs,...

Top Rated Comments

Chundles Avatar
62 months ago

Amazing results? It was at 1080p and looked horrible.
It was being translated on the fly by Rosetta 2. Wasn’t running natively. The fact that it ran at all is amazing.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Cookie18 Avatar
62 months ago

Are the DTK supposed to be representative of low-end Macs, mid-level or high-end Macs? Just asking because in the Keynote they emulated Maya/Tomb Raider to amazing results (given that it is beta hardware/software).

People who did the DTK in 2005 may be able to shed light on how those machines were, for comparison.
They’re not supposed to be representative of anything. They’re for developers to convert their apps to Apple Silicon Mac OS. The chips inside of these are two years old at this point. Whatever we end up getting will be significantly more powerful. This isn’t even close to what we will actually be buying.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
GadgetBen Avatar
62 months ago

FYI Running benchmark tests on the DTK is forbidden by Apple and much more. ('https://developer.apple.com/terms/universal-app-quick-start-program/Developer-Universal-App-Quick-Start-Program.pdf')
Yeah but this isn't going to stop people.
Score: 17 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JPNMac Avatar
62 months ago

Given how fast the iPads are with only a few gigs of RAM, I'll be interested to hear how these minis perform with 16 gb.
FYI Running benchmark tests on the DTK is forbidden by Apple and much more. ('https://developer.apple.com/terms/universal-app-quick-start-program/Developer-Universal-App-Quick-Start-Program.pdf')
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
WannaGoMac Avatar
62 months ago
All these negative comments about performance of a 2 year old CPU setup to port apps?? Are this many people negative or just ignorant? Feel free to be as negative as you want when the actual first computers come out, until then just chill the heck out.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tevion5 Avatar
62 months ago

Amazing results? It was at 1080p and looked horrible.
Guys people are really missing the point of that demo if that's what they're taking away from it.

What we saw was a relatively demanding x86 game running smoothly under Rosetta 2 on ARM hardware. Even if it's at 1080p and low settings that's fairly incredible. Anyone familiar with the PPC-Intel Rosetta will tell you binary conversion performance was nothing like that, especially regarding AAA 3D games at the time.

What you're basically doing is judging a French man by how spotty his German grammar is. The fact he speaks German fluently at all is impressive!

Wait until a high end Mac game is released that's actually compiled for the ARM chip before judgment. And then this is only an iPad CPU for the dev kit! We can expect a real ARM Macs to be a lot more powerful.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)