With Apple's refreshed MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini computers powered by the company's M1 laptop chip in customers' hands now, we're starting to see first reports of the inevitable teething issues that accompany every new hardware launch.
The new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini with the Apple M1 chip let you run Intel-only apps in Rosetta emulation, in addition to native Apple Silicon apps. However, macOS Big Sur doesn't make it easy to identify which apps are Intel-only from those with code optimized for the M1 chip, but this nifty little app solves that problem in one fell swoop.
According to the technical specifications for both the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro with M1, the devices can run a single external display. However, it turns out you can attach quite a bit more.
Apple provides the enhanced Universal 2 binary feature to its developers who wish to ship macOS apps that pack in code for both Intel and Apple Silicon systems. In other words, a universal binary runs natively on both Apple M1 and Intel-based Mac computers because it contains executable code for both architectures. However, certain edge cases may justify running a native Apple Silicon app under Rosetta emulation, and we show you how it's done.
While key virtualization software companies like Parallels, WMware and Docker are developing solutions that will permit users to run Windows software on Apple Silicon Macs, developer CodeWeavers has said that its CrossOver software is already capable of running Windows apps and games on the new M1-powered MacBook Air, Mac mini and 13-inch MacBook Pro.
According to Apple's software engineering head Craig Federighi, technical specifications are no longer a good predictor of actual real-world performances that depend on the task at hand.
The Pixelmator team today released a major new version of their award-winning image editor for macOS, Pixelmator Pro, which includes native support for the new M1-powered Mac computers and the latest macOS Big Sur software, along with many other enahncements.
Following a snag with yesterday's debut of a new Chrome version that's optimized for M1-powered Macs, Google has now resumed rolling out Chrome for Apple Silicon Macs.
If you are excited about the new Mac hardware and dream about running Windows on your M1-powered Mac, a company called Docker is working on a solution for you.
When Apple announced the switch away from Intel chips this summer, many people have been wondering about Boot Camp's future. And while Apple has only said that Boot Camp will not work with the new M1-powered Mac computers, companies that build virtualization software may provide a solution down the road. Parallels Desktop, a popular virtualization app for Mac systems with Intel chips, announced today that a new version of the app that can run on these new Mac computers equipped with the Apple M1 chip is in “active development.”
The new Mac mini, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models powered by the new Apple M1 laptop chip bring support for Wi-Fi 6 aka 802.11ax to the Mac platform for the first time.
With its new M1 laptop chip and related hardware updates to the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini, Apple has now stopped selling MacBook Air configurations with Intel processors in order to focus exclusively on the new models that are powered by the M1 chip. As for the Mac mini and MacBook Pro, some Intel-based configurations continue to be offered by Apple.