Apple rented Developer Transition Kit Mac minis a year ago to assist programmers in preparing Apple Silicon.
Apple’s transition from Intel processors to Apple Silicon has been among the most extensive Mac modifications in years.
To make this process as easy as possible for consumers, Apple produced a habit Mac mini for programmers so they can obtain their macOS programs prepared to support Apple’s new ARM-based program.
Programmers needed to pay $500 to rent those Developer Transition Kit background Macs in 2020. After Apple announced them in last year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), it stated that the rental would last for a year.
But, Apple has asked them to be returned –and it is offering devs a $200 charge for doing this.
Apple’s Developer Transition Kit Macs
The DTK Macs were not a pre-release, old version of the M1 Mac mini sent at the end of 2020. With Apple’s A12Z Bionic processor, which is generally located in the fourth production 2020 iPad Guru, it was rather more of a macOS-running iPad within the body of a Mac mini.
“It is not a foundation on which to judge future Macs… but it provides you a feeling of exactly what our Silicon team may do if they are not trying–and they are likely to be stressful,” Apple’s VP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi clarified in a meeting with Daring Fireball’s John Gruber after WWDC.
N an email, printed by 9to5Mac, which Apple delivered to programmers who had rented a DTK Mac, it wrote :
“Now the new MacBook Air, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro powered by M1 are accessible; it will soon be time for you to reunite the Developer Transition Kit (DTK), which has been sent to you within this app. Please find the original packaging to be used in returning the DTK.
We’ll email you in a couple of weeks together with directions for returning the DTK.”
The fundamental version of Mac mini with Apple’s M1 chip begins at $699.
If programmers choose to utilize their $200 charge to purchase one, that usually means they can pick up an M1 Mac mini for the exact cost they paid for your DTK Mac.
Preparing the Next Generation of Mac Apps
Not every programmer will be happy at Apple requesting the DTK Macs back beforehand, naturally.
While programmers understood going in that this was a temporary rental, a yearlong rental should have taken them to June–maybe not February.
Nevertheless, given they used it correctly, it ought to have helped attain the job it was intended for: specifically, to help prepare the initial creation of Apple Silicon programs for macOS. Programmers should now be reaping the benefits.
