Apple silicon is the heart of every Mac, and it’s important to make sure your apps run smoothly on your M1. Here are a few tips to help you check if an app runs on your Mac with Apple silicon: First, open the App Store on your M1 and search for the app you want to check. If the app is available in the App Store, it should run on your M1. If not, there may be a problem with the app or with Apple silicon. If you have an older Mac that doesn’t have Apple silicon, you can still try some of our older apps. Just be sure to read our instructions first so that you don’t damage your computer! If you still can’t find the app or it doesn’t run on your M1, there may be a problem with either your computer or the app. You can try reinstalling the app or contacting the developer for help. ..
We recommend checking out the “Is Apple silicon ready?” website. This website, created by programmer Abdullah Diaa, provides a searchable directory that brings together compatibility information from all over the web.
Head to the website, search for an application, and look at the available information. If an app has a checkmark in the “Apple silicon optimized” column, that tells you it has an official version that runs natively and speedily on Apple Silicon. The “M1 Supported version” column tells you which version of the app supports Apple Silicon.
If an app has a checkmark in the “Rosetta 2” column, that tells you it works properly via the Rosetta 2 translation layer. The app will run and be usable on an ARM Mac.
In some cases, you might see a yellow caution triangle. This indicates that the app may work properly, but that it may have some bugs. You can click any app and you’ll see a link to further information about any problems and plans for compatibility—perhaps on the developer’s website, on a discussion forum, or in a Twitter thread somewhere.
That’s the real advantage of this website—it brings discussions from all over the web together in one place.
You could also hunt down this information yourself—for example, if you’re wondering whether a professional app supports Apple Silicon, you can head to the developer’s website and see if they have an announcement. You could also perform a web search for the name of the app and “m1 mac” to see if it works properly on Apple’s first M1 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini. But this directory should save you some time.
Really, Rosetta 2 works amazingly well—especially compared to Microsoft’s half-baked emulation layer in Windows 10 on ARM. As of November 2020, Microsoft’s Windows 10 on ARM still can’t emulate 64-bit Intel applications—years after it was first released!
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