When the first M1 chips for Mac were released by Apple in 2020, they were industry-shaking. With lightning-fast performance and efficiency, that had never been seen before, they more than lived up to the media hype.
Naturally, though, this meant a lot of change. Macs had always used Intel-based chips until the launch of the M1 technology. While the advanced tech used in these game-changing chips is a big step forward and delivers great speeds, change necessitates some work. Most of the essential software that most businesses used was designed to run on Intel chips.
How compatible is M1?
Compatibility is always a concern when there’s an advancement in tech. It’s an issue that Apple has wrangled with in the past. When PC usage was more ubiquitous at certain stages, and many programmes were designed to work on them, compatibility was a criticism often levied on Macs. Times have changed, of course. Apple prides itself on creating hardware that isn’t only fast and powerful, but also highly compatible.
There was some minor concern from small corners about what the advent of M1 would mean for software compatibility. However, these were unfounded since the vast majority of the top third-party software creators understood how special the M1 chip would be. They’ve pre-empted the popularity of M1 and have been hard at work ensuring that their software can run perfectly on M1 machines.
M1 and Software Compatibility
For business owners and creatives, there is little reason to worry. M1 is proving to be revolutionary with excellent compatibility with third-party software. While many software creators have been swift to get their programmes running with M1 natively, for those that haven’t, there is Rosetta 2.
The Rosetta 2 emulator allows software designed to work on Intel chips to work on M1 devices. Rosetta has been shown to work very well as an emulator for this software and many still benefit from the added speed and performance on the new Macs with M1 chips.
However, most software creators have understood that M1 is a positive opportunity for their software and do not want to miss out on running their programmes optimally M1.
Natively-running software
The following software is now all running natively on Mac devices with M1 chips:
Photoshop
Acrobat DC
Lightroom
Lightroom Classic
Premiere Pro
Illustrator
Adobe XD
InDesign
Character Animator
Adobe Audition
Dreamweaver
Premiere Rush
Adobe Media Encoder
InCopy
After Effects (Beta)
As of early November 2021, the following software is still relying on the Rosetta 2 emulator:
Acrobat Pro
After Effects
Animate
Adobe Photoshop Elements
Adobe Premiere Elements
Adobe Bridge
Adobe Premiere Pro and M1
Premier Pro for M1
With the widespread use and respect for Adobe Premiere Pro in creative industries, it was crucial that it functioned natively on M1.
One month after M1 was launched, a beta of Adobe Premiere Pro for M1 was available and since summer 2021 Adobe Premiere Pro now runs natively on M1 devices. This is great news for all creative design businesses who want the power and efficiency of M1 devices.
This combined with the launch of M1 Pro and M1 Max will result in these highly creative industries having access to incredibly fast and powerful hardware to do their best work.
Not only does Adobe Premiere Pro run on M1 devices, but Adobe reports it runs 80% faster on these machines with far less battery drainage than other hardware.
If your business is looking to lease M1 Macs, Hardsoft can help spread the cost of your devices and organise seamless deployment to your entire team. Our experts can ensure that you have a lease that matches your business goals and can fully configure all your M1 devices so they are out of the box and ready to go.
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