Apple wasn't the only big tech name to host an event for members of the media today. Less than an hour away in San Francisco, Intel kicked off its 14th annual Intel Developer Forum in which the chip maker confirmed plans to ship Core i3, i5 and i7 processors as 14-nanometer Broadwell parts early next year.

That wasn't the only big news of the day as Intel also announced intentions to begin production of its next generation CPU architecture in the second half of 2015 as part of Intel's familiar tick-tock development cycle.

The new microarchitecture, codenamed Skylake, will deliver "significant" performance increases, better battery life and better power efficiency compared to Broadwell according to Intel's Kirk Skaugen. And unlike Broadwell, Intel is planning to deliver Skylake across traditional PC markets including high-end desktops.

Skaugen noted that Skylake is coming along just fine in the development process at this stage. To help demonstrate that point, he showed those in attendance a working demo unit. Unlike past demonstrations that used early development motherboards, however, this demo chip was installed inside of a notebook.

The Intel rep reportedly ran a 3DMark graphics benchmark as part of the showcase, a move that The Tech Report believes may hint at the focus of Skylake's performance improvements. Elsewhere, Skaugen said Skylake is capable of decoding and displaying 4K video content in real time - a useful attribute considering we're quickly moving from 1080p to 4K (at least in the television industry).

Developers will be able to get their hands on the Skylake development platform during the first quarter of next year.