Apple plans to drop Intel chips from Macs starting from around 2020, Bloomberg reports-- with the replacement being Apple-developed processors, part of an initiative dubbed "Kalamata."

According to anonymous "people familiar with the plans," Kalamata is a strategy to make all Apple devices (such as Macs, iPhones and iPads) work more similarly and seamlessly together, leading to a more tightly integrated Apple ecosystem. The initiative is reportedly already approved, and probably involves a "multi-step transition."

“We think that Apple is looking at ways to further integrate their hardware and software platforms, and they’ve clearly made some moves in this space, trying to integrate iOS and macOS,” analyst Cross Research tells Bloomberg. “It makes sense that they’re going in this direction. If you look at incremental R&D spend, it’s gone into ways to try to vertically integrate their components so they can add more functionality for competitive differentiation.”

Bloomberg says Macs running on Apple-made chips should start hitting the market from 2020, but the computers might start seeing changes in software earlier. The change has already, in fact, started, since macOS and iOS recently started sharing a file management system, among other low-level features. This is part of another initiative, dubbed "Marzipan," to create a software a software platform allowing iOS apps to run on macOS.

Should Apple shift Macs to own chips one company will definitely get hurt-- Intel. The Intel-Apple partnership in Macs helped both companies, pushing the Mac into the mainstream while linking Chipzilla with one of the biggest brands in the industry. Bloomberg claims Apple provides Intel with around 5% of annual revenues, a small percentage but should Apple find success with own chip designs other big companies might decide to follow suit.

Go Apple Plans to Use its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel (Bloomberg)