How to Find Intel Apps on Apple Silicon Mac

  • 30 October 2022
  • 9 replies
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by: Jamie Cuevas

 

If you want to optimize app performance on an Apple Silicon Mac, you’ll want to be sure you’re running universal apps or apps built for Apple Silicon. And perhaps you’re just curious about which apps you have are still running Intel code on a newer Apple Silicon Mac. It’s easy to determine which apps continue to use Intel code on an M1/M2 Mac, so let’s check that out.

 

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9 replies

Userlevel 7
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This is an excellent article. Things run much faster when native to the M1. That said,,the machine is so powerful, Intel apps are no slouch in performance. 
 

In fact I’ve been running the ARM version of Windows 11 on my M1 Mac in Parallels. And it also will run Intel Windows apps. I tried Steam games and the performance was excellent  

 

So while I agree that running Native apps will give the best performance, do t be in such a hurry to upgrade an expensive app if it is still running well. 

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Excellent article, and thank you for sharing. Have forwarded this to our “MAC Support” guys as well. 

Userlevel 7
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Excellent article, and thank you for sharing. Have forwarded this to our “MAC Support” guys as well. 

Keep in mind that the computer runs fine without worrying about any of this   This is more of.a power user issue looking for more speed. And right now, you can’t always find a native version of an app. 

Userlevel 7
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This has always been a good tip to know. But as @MajorHavoc says, doesn’t make much difference on the Apple silicon macs since they have such good ram and processor specs.

This technique was very useful back when Apple switched from PowerPC chipsets to Intel.

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I have the highest end last  Intel iMac made  and the highest end MacBookPro (MBP)  M1 Max and side by side on my tests, the MBP is about 4x as fast as the Intel machine, discounting network wait times.  These things are fast, and will only get faster as the M class chips improve. 

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The M1 chips really do fly. I have been very impressed so far

Userlevel 7
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Interesting article, not something I can see us needing per say, I think as Major says this appears to be aimed more at power users but will share with the guys none the less. Thank you!

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The article, not the computer, just to be clear. The machine will run MOST, but not all Intel programs quote well for now. But I suspect, like their transition to new chips before, Apple will remove this feature eventually and people will have to upgrade. 

Userlevel 7
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The article, not the computer, just to be clear. The machine will run MOST, but not all Intel programs quote well for now. But I suspect, like their transition to new chips before, Apple will remove this feature eventually and people will have to upgrade. 

Sounds likely based on previous experience.

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