Universal and Native Apple Silicon Apps

[VivienM]

Considering Apple will likely drop support for Intel next year, that makes no sense.

Apple won't drop support for Intel apps next year. Even if we assume that macOS 15 drops support for Intel machines (and I still think there's a chance the 2020 Intel machines might get another year), there's no way they're dropping Rosetta 2 at the same time.

I expect they'll do the same thing they did when dropping 32-bit Intel apps: they'll announce deprecation and then have the Finder start giving a "this application won't work with future versions of macOS" to try and shame the remaining stragglers. Although... hmm... did they do that with PPC apps? I have a machine with 10.6.8 so I could try and check, but I'm not sure if they gave users any warning that 10.7 would drop PPC apps.

I actually wish they would start giving those kinds of dialog boxes now because, well, that kind of shaming is the only thing that will get the remaining developers moving over to AS-native apps. Everybody else, whether it's the Big Developers (Adobe, Microsoft), the Mac loyalists (PCalc, BBedit, GraphicConverter, etc. that have been around since 68K), Big Open Source (e.g. LibreOffice), or the Windows-first reasonable non-Electron folks (e.g. Vandyke's SecureCRT, UltraEdit, etc - the people who all started porting their Windows software to the Mac in the Intel era and who continue to operate on Windows timelines), they're all AS-native by now.

 

[Infinitewisdom]

I saw people mention on Reddit that the new Mac app is more or less the iPad app which is very exciting. The Mac app was always the red headed stepchild of the Kindle app family. Just horrible. I might not even need my iPad anymore if I can get the iOS app on my Mac.

It's out now if you haven't seen it. And it's basically like the iOS app. Nice update.

 

[RobbieTT]

the only non-AS-native apps left (Authy, I'm looking at you) are electron.

The weird thing with Authy is that the iPad version works perfectly on macOS and is cleaner, faster and a fraction of the size of the current Authy Desktop. I've been using it on macOS for around a year:

 

[rulymammoth]

of course it is... did we expect competency from Amazon?

Its been how many years since the first M1 chip.... And they finally release a new version thats still Intel...

That...... is nothing short of hilarious. This whole time I thought they were coming out with an Apple Silicon chip. Is that really a multi billion dollar company over there?? Wow.

 

[STOCK411]

That...... is nothing short of hilarious. This whole time I thought they were coming out with an Apple Silicon chip. Is that really a multi billion dollar company over there?? Wow.

they are rightfully getting skewered in the reviews section for the app...


its absurd that a multi billion dollar company takes 3+ years to update their kindle app and the end result is the junk they just released

 

[RobbieTT]

I guess it takes a major tech company, that dominates a third of the cloud server market, to really screw-up a 'ground-up' software release by basing it on a tech design no longer sold and requires the installation of a translation layer just to run!

 

[chrfr]

The Kindle app is, as of version 6.85.3 released around October 16, now a universal app which runs natively on Apple Silicon.

 

[gank41]

Considering Apple will likely drop support for Intel next year, that makes no sense.

The chances that Apple's macOS 15 is Apple Silicon only is extremely slim to none. Apple has a long history of supporting software and equipment long out of scope (like 5 years).

 

[VivienM]

The chances that Apple's macOS 15 is Apple Silicon only is extremely slim to none. Apple has a long history of supporting software and equipment long out of scope (like 5 years).

Perhaps someone should introduce you to folks who bought Power Mac G5s and aluminum PowerBook G4s. At a time when new OS X versions were less frequent, those guys got one major upgrade (Leopard) and then their machines were abandoned.

Apple's long history of supporting software may be true for iOS devices, and may be true for some Macs (whether it's the Mac Plus or II or some of the early-2010s machines), but they've also been ruthless in past transitions. Same with some of the early Intel machines, which got two OS upgrades and that was that.

At the rate at which they've been dropping Intel machines, macOS 15 is going to be down to maybe some 2019 and 2020 Intel machines at best if it still supports Intel. And at what point do they say 'screw the 2020 iMac and the 2020 4-thunderbolt 13" MacBook Pro' and just stop compiling for Intel?

 

[gank41]

Perhaps someone should introduce you to folks who bought Power Mac G5s and aluminum PowerBook G4s. At a time when new OS X versions were less frequent, those guys got one major upgrade (Leopard) and then their machines were abandoned.

I still have a fully functioning G5 PPC Mac Pro. Works great!

 

[bradbomb]

The chances that Apple's macOS 15 is Apple Silicon only is extremely slim to none. Apple has a long history of supporting software and equipment long out of scope (like 5 years).

Supporting software and equipment long out of scope does not always equate to new major OS updates. Besides the PPC Examples:

iPad 3rd Gen - Released 2012, last version of iOS is 9 which released in 2015
iPad 4th Gen - Released 2012, last version of iOS is 10 which released in 2016
MacBook Pro Core Duo (32bit only) - Released 2006 - last version of OS X 10.6 which released in 2009

Yes, lately, things have lasted longer only because of similar architecture, but the 32bit to 64bit change washed other things out quickly, and Intel machines have already had a significant amount of them dropped officially with Sonoma with the only 2017 machine left being the iMac Pro.

 

[RobbieTT]

Intel machines have already had a significant amount of them dropped officially with Sonoma with the only 2017 machine left being the iMac Pro.

The last bit is significant as it assured us all that Apple was on a familiar path. It is likely that there will be a macOS Intel version beyond Sonoma, albeit limited to the Intel Mac Pro. Given the original price tag of the (Intel) Mac Pro could we see Apple gifting an additional year? Who knows but either way, this would impact a very small fraction of the macOS user base.

☕️

 

[VivienM]

The last bit is significant as it assured us all that Apple was on a familiar path. It is likely that there will be a macOS Intel version beyond Sonoma, albeit limited to the Intel Mac Pro. Given the original price tag of the (Intel) Mac Pro could we see Apple gifting an additional year? Who knows but either way, this would impact a very small fraction of the macOS user base.

☕️

If they're going to support the 2019 Mac Pro, why would they drop the 2020 13" MacBook Pro and the 2021 27" iMac?

If you're looking at the life of the iMac Pro, note that the iMac Pro was the first T2 machine...

 

[Silvestru Hosszu]

You can download the What's App Beta ARM64 for Apple Silicon by clicking here

I deleted the beta and downloaded the regular arm64.
But it refuses the login properly.
After it says that it is downloading recent messages it just quits unexpectedly.
Did anyone have this issue? Do you have any solutions?

 

[southerndoc]

TurboTax 2023.... still Intel. Ugh

 

[ADGrant]

The last bit is significant as it assured us all that Apple was on a familiar path. It is likely that there will be a macOS Intel version beyond Sonoma, albeit limited to the Intel Mac Pro. Given the original price tag of the (Intel) Mac Pro could we see Apple gifting an additional year? Who knows but either way, this would impact a very small fraction of the macOS user base.

☕️

The significance of the iMac Pro being the last 2017 Intel Mac still supported is it is a T2 Mac. No T2 Macs have been dropped yet. OTOH very few non-T2 Macs are still supported.

 

[Kotsos81]

Addition to the list in page 1: Matlab has an AS native version since R23b. Same goes to Mosek toolbox 10.1.

 

[LAEINX]

Actually, my M3 max MacBook Pro 14'' runs very well every day. it can run tens of professional apps simultaneously without any crash very fast and smoothly.

Don't be such a snob!
I'm highly productive and the new M1 chip will do wonders for my workflow.

 

[STOCK411]

So it appears that EA is finally going to release the new EA app on the mac this month

 

[dmccloud]

So it appears that EA is finally going to release the new EA app on the mac this month

I'll believe it when I see it. I haven't been too impressed with EA's support for either Origin or their new app on any OS.

 

[ADGrant]

If they're going to support the 2019 Mac Pro, why would they drop the 2020 13" MacBook Pro and the 2021 27" iMac?

If you're looking at the life of the iMac Pro, note that the iMac Pro was the first T2 machine...

Yes, I am thinking that most of the T2 Macs are supported until the end though Apple did drop support for the 2018 and 2019 MacBook Air. They had very underpowered CPUs and GPUs though.

 

[ADGrant]

So at this point should we have a thread for apps that don't natively support ARM64?

 

[pshufd]

It would be

So at this point should we have a thread for apps that don't natively support ARM64?

It would be a much shorter list.

I'd post TurboTax and Fidelity Active Trader Pro as two entries.

 

[Beefbowl]

I haven't downloaded this year's TT yet but I was hoping they'd finally have gotten around to making it a universal binary. Guess there's always 2026.

 

[Kotsos81]

For those developing optimization algorithms for simulations in MATLAB and are dealing with convex optimization problems, a native CVX 2.2 package for Apple Sillicon has been developed:

Native CVX for M-Series Macs

Also a reminder that MOSEK optimization toolbox has a native version for M-Series Macs since v10.1.

MOSEK 10.2.11 for M-Series Macs

I have extensively tested both and work fine.