At its 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple announced a non-commercial prototype computer called "Developer Transition Kit". It is intended to assist software developers during the transition of the Macintosh platform to the ARM architecture. Described informally as "an iPad in a Mac mini’s body," the DTK carries a model number of A2330 and identifies itself as "Apple Development Platform." It consists of an A12Z processor, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, and a variety of common I/O ports in a Mac mini case. Support for wireless communication based upon Wi-Fi 5 and Bluetooth 5.0 is included, while Thunderbolt 3 support, built-in to every Mac commercially available as of June 2020, is not included. It comes preloaded with beta versions of macOS 11 Big Sur and Xcode 12.
Performance
In an interview shortly after the introduction of the DTK, Apple’s SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi praised the DTK's performance and contributed to expectations of superlative performance of forthcoming commercial products based upon Apple silicon custom-engineered for the Macintosh platform: “Even that DTK hardware, which is running on an existing iPad chip that we don’t intend to put in a Mac in the future – it’s just there for the transition – the Mac runs awfully nice on that system. It’s not a basis on which to judge future Macs... but it gives you a sense of what our silicon team can do when they’re not even trying – and they’re going to be trying.”
Conditions of use
The DTK is being made available strictly to developers on a loan, not purchase basis, and as such must be returned to Apple at the conclusion of the ARM transition. Several conditions of use are attached, including restrictions against disassembling the computer, running unauthorized benchmark tests, or using it for work other than transition-related software development.
Cost
The DTK is being made available to selected software developers as part of a developer transition program whose total cost is $500. YouTuber Dave Lee observed that, possibly due to Apple's lower component costs, this price compares very favorably both with the 2005 DTK, and with a current Mac mini of roughly similar specifications.
Historical antecedents
During Apple's 2005-2006 transition from PowerPC to Intel processors, the company announced and made available an analogous prototype Macintosh computer for developers. Also called "Developer Transition Kit", the computer identified itself as "Apple Development Platform", and consisted of a 3.6 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, 1 GB DDR2 RAM, 160 GB SATA hard disk drive, and optical disk drive in a Power Mac G5 case slightly modified with an altered cooling system. Connectivity included USB 2.0, FireWire 400, and Gigabit Ethernet. Software included Xcode 2.1 and a version of Mac OS X 10.4.1 which runs on Intel's x86 architecture. The 2005 DTK was similarly available to software developers on a loan basis, and Apple required developers to return the prototype computers to the company within a week of December 31, 2006. During Apple's 2005 WorldWide Developer's Conference, then CEO Steve Jobs emphasized the non-commercial nature of the prototype hardware: "This is a development platform only. This is not a product; this will never be shipped as a product. It’s just for you guys to get started in development. You actually have to return them by the end of 2006. We don’t want them floating around out there. These are not products."
