Ultra-light MacBook with Apple chip is reportedly coming this year

Apple is putting its new ARM-based chips to good use.

According to a report by The China Times (via MacRumors), Apple is planning to launch a 12-inch MacBook powered by its new A14X chip near year's end.

The report, which cites sources from Apple's supply chain, claims the device will have a USB-C slot (no surprise there) and weigh less than one kilogram, which is made possible by the low-power ARM-based processor. It will have a battery life of 15-20 hours.

This same chip will be used in the next generation iPad Pro, the report claims.

Apple's transition from Intel chips to Apple-branded, ARM-based silicon was made public during this year's WWDC conference in June. Apple said the first Mac to include the new chip should ship before the end of 2020, but hasn't provided any other details.

If accurate, the report would mean the return of Apple's 12-inch MacBook, which was replaced by MacBook Air last year. The prospect of having to deal with just one USB-C port is scary, but the extreme portability and battery life sound very appealing.

Over the year, we've heard various rumors about potential Macs with Apple silicon. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in June that Apple will launch an ARM-based, 13.3-inch MacBook Pro in late 2020 or early 2021, but he also said an ARM-based, 24-inch iMac is possible in the same timeframe. The China Times' report says an iMac sporting Apple silicon will come next year, armed with a powerful, custom-designed graphics card which will replaced the AMD GPUs typically found in iMacs.