Apple sends out $500 digital vouchers to devs who return their DTK Macs

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Mac mini with ARM chip
DTK Mac was a preview of Apple Silicon.
Photo: Apple

Apple started issuing $500 digital vouchers to developers following the return of their Developer Transition Kit Macs.

The company introduced the custom DTK Macs last year at its Worldwide Developers Conference. As their name suggests, the hardware was intended to help developers transition their apps from Macs’ previous Intel architecture to new Apple Silicon processors.

They were offered as a one-year lease, although Apple wound up requesting them back at around the nine-month mark.

The DTK Macs were never made available to customers to buy. Instead, they were a hybrid Hackintosh of sorts — offering an A12Z Bionic chip usually found in the fourth-ten iPad Pro in the body of a Mac mini, running macOS. As Apple explained it at the time, it was essentially a preview of the Apple Silicon Mac for optimizing apps before the M1 Macs were ready to ship. They didn’t run as efficiently as M1 Macs, although no doubt they will represent a fun collectors’ item in the future.

Apple’s $500 reimbursement to customers is a $300 boost from what Apple originally said it would give. Earlier this year, it offered $200 to people to return their DTK Macs. Apple has now changed that, offering $500 instead.

Apple’s note to developers notes that:

“In appreciation of your participation in the Universal App Quick Start program and to help with your continued development of Universal apps, we’d like to provide you with a one-time-use promo code for $500 toward the purchase of a new M1 Mac or other Apple products ordered through the Apple Store Online.”

Did you lease a DTK Mac from Apple? How did you find the experience of using it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Via: MacRumors

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