Apple’s Leaked Project ‘Star’ Could Be A Touchscreen ARM MacBook With LTE

Always Connected PC is Microsoft’s slang that refers to Arm-powered computing devices with always-on internet connectivity without compromising the battery life. Credit goes to the rumors, Apple also hasn’t turned deaf ears to the world of ARM-based replacements for its fans.

Apple is known to be working on a new Arm-based touchscreen device project dubbed Star. The beans have been spilled by 9to5Mac which is following the development for a few months.

Apple’s Chinese partner Pegatron is manufacturing the prototypes of the rumored device at least since January. Some of them have been shipped to Cupertino for internal testing by the employees.

Some of the known specs of the device include a touchscreen, SIM support for LTE, GPS, compass, and water resistance. It’s classified as a new device family, separate from iPhone and iPad, possibly running a modified version of iOS.

However, one thing that hints towards the presence of macOS on Star is the fact that it runs EFI – the same boot system used by Macs.

It could release as early as 2020. But what sparks curiosity is the software part, whether it would run macOS or iOS with support for Mac apps.

Last year, reports revealed that company was working on a project called Marzipan to combine the codebase of MacOS and iOS apps, allowing developers to create a single app for both platforms. It would be similar to what Microsft did for Windows.

But Apple CEO didn’t seem to agree when asked about combining the likes of the two. At an Apple event last month, he said,”I don’t think that’s what users want.” Merging the two won’t happen without trade-offs and compromises.

Maybe both the two OSs have their importance, but the chances of the merger couldn’t be ruled out as it would make things easier for both Apple and developers.

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