Apple Highlights Popular Apps Optimized for M1 Macs

Apple recently shared a list of popular apps optimized for Macs with the M1 chip that are available in the Mac App Store, such as Pixelmator Pro, Adobe Lightroom, Affinity Designer, Darkroom, Fantastical, BBEdit, Instapaper, and Twitter.

apple banner apps optimized for m1 chip
"Macs with the new Apple M1 chip offer unprecedented performance, and developers can optimize their apps for the M1 to deliver game-changing speed and capabilities," says Apple. "Get started with these apps that take full advantage of the power of M1."

MacRumors also has a crowdsourced list of apps that run natively on Apple Silicon Macs, including apps available outside of the Mac App Store.

At WWDC 2020 in June, Apple revealed its plans to begin using its own custom Apple Silicon processors in Macs, starting with the M1 chip. Apple said that its transition away from Intel processors in Macs would take around two years to be completed, with future Apple Silicon Macs rumored to include redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, a 24-inch iMac, a smaller version of the Mac Pro, and more.

Last month, Apple released its first Macs with the M1 chip, including a new 13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini, and benchmarks confirmed that the chip delivers industry-leading performance per watt. Apple's custom silicon is so impressive that the base model MacBook Air outperforms a maxed-out Intel-based 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Popular Stories

Generic iOS 19 Feature Mock Light

iOS 19 Leak Reveals All-New Design

Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app. Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
2024 iPhone Boxes Feature

Apple Changes Trade-In Values for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and More

Thursday January 16, 2025 6:45 am PST by
Apple today adjusted estimated trade-in values for select iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch models in the U.S., according to its website. Some values increased, while others decreased. The changes were not too significant, with most values rising or dropping by $5 to $50. We have outlined some examples below: Device New Value Old Value iPhone 15 Pro Max Up to $630 U ...
2024 App Store Awards

Apple Explains Why It Removed TikTok From the App Store in the U.S.

Sunday January 19, 2025 6:58 am PST by
Apple on late Saturday removed TikTok from the App Store in the U.S., and it has now explained why it was required to take this action. Last year, the U.S. passed a law that required Chinese company ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok due to potential national security risks, or else the platform would be banned. That law went into effect today, and companies like Apple and Google...
Generic iOS 18

Everything New in iOS 18.3 Beta 3

Thursday January 16, 2025 12:39 pm PST by
Apple provided the third beta of iOS 18.3 to developers today, and while the betas have so far been light on new features, the third beta makes some major changes to Notification Summaries and also tweaks a few other features. Notification Summary Changes Apple made multiple changes to Notification Summaries in response to complaints about inaccurate summaries of news headlines. For...
iOS 19 Roundup Feature

iOS 19 Rumored to Be Compatible With These iPhones

Saturday January 18, 2025 10:28 am PST by
iOS 19 will not drop support for any iPhone models, according to French website iPhoneSoft.fr. The report cited a source who said iOS 19 will be compatible with any iPhone that can run iOS 18, which would mean the following models: iPhone 16 iPhone 16 Plus iPhone 16 Pro iPhone 16 Pro Max iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max iPhone 14 iPhon...
iPad Pro vs iPhone 17 Air Feature

Here's How Thin the iPhone 17 Air Might Be

Friday January 17, 2025 3:38 pm PST by
For the last several months, we've been hearing rumors about a redesigned version of the iPhone 17 that Apple might call the iPhone 17 "Air," or something along those lines. It's going to replace the iPhone 17 Plus as Apple's fourth iPhone option, and it will be offered alongside the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. We know the iPhone 17 Air is going to be super slim, but...
apple power beats pro 2

Powerbeats Pro 2 Coming Soon: Apple to Announce Them 'Imminently'

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:25 am PST by
In September, Apple said that it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and it appears the wireless earbuds are coming very soon. Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the Powerbeats Pro 2 in regulatory databases last month, Gurman said Apple is...
airtag 4 pack blue

AirTag 2 Launching This Year With These 3 New Features

Sunday January 19, 2025 8:11 am PST by
After a four-year wait, a new AirTag is finally expected to launch in 2025. Below, we recap rumored upgrades for the accessory. A few months ago, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple was aiming to release the AirTag 2 around the middle of 2025. While he did not offer a more specific timeframe, that means the AirTag 2 could be announced by the end of June. The original AirTag was announced...

Top Rated Comments

TantalizedMind Avatar
54 months ago

The more apps that get updated the better.
The sun rises in the East and sets in the West.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
omenatarhuri Avatar
54 months ago

Cool. You're a developer yourself?
Yep. ?
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
omenatarhuri Avatar
54 months ago
For most apps it’s ridiculously easy. Just recompile and that’s it. Apple has done a phenomenal job with this CPU transition. ?
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
omenatarhuri Avatar
54 months ago

Not a programmer, but is there a difference between an app that was Intel and "just recompiled" and one that was written for M1 explicitly? Would the latter perform even better?
Depends on what you're developing. Lots of apps get written at a higher abstraction level where you are defining what the app looks like and what it does (the conditional business logic). It's not all too common that you would really need to write anything that is so close to the hardware where you'd do something differently based on the CPU architecture (how the machine should do what you want it to do).

Apps that would do that would be those where getting peak performance is critical, apps like games or some heavy-duty video editing I suppose or the likes. But I'd be surprised if there's anything like that in some of the apps on the list e.g. in Twitter, BBEdit or Fantastical.

Please note that I'm not contradicting what is said up there, these apps are now "optimised for M1". The fact that it can be done simply by recompiling is great and makes many devs life easy.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SirAnthonyHopkins Avatar
54 months ago

The more apps that get updated the better.
Interesting perspective, tell me more.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ct2k7 Avatar
54 months ago
The more apps that get updated the better.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)