With Apple taking a huge gamble and ditching Intel and its x86 processors, the company is really banking on developers to start developing apps that are native and optimized for their M1 chipsets. This is because without a solid ecosystem, no matter how powerful the chipsets are, no one would want to adopt them.
The good news for early adopters of the M1 chipset is that if you prefer Google Chrome over Safari, you’ll be pleased to learn that Google has since announced that an M1 optimized version of Chrome is now available for download. This means that this version has been created with the M1 chipset in mind and should hopefully be able to take advantage of the chipset’s features.
We're live now. Head on over to https://t.co/H3bYthKx3z and grab the latest M1 build!
— Mark Chang (@mchang) November 18, 2020
At the moment, Apple has a three-pronged approach when it comes to apps for its new M1 computers. There is the native, optimized version that was created specifically for the M1 chipsets. Then there is the Rosetta 2 translation tool which helps “translate” x86 apps to run on the M1. This isn’t really a long-term solution, but rather it has been designed to help with the transition process.
Lastly, iPhone and iPad apps can now run natively on macOS Big Sur. This is also far from an ideal situation due to the UI design and how some apps rely heavily on touch and gestures, but it does open the door to an even larger library.
Filed in . Read more about Apps, Chrome, Google, M1 and macOS.