Hello,
I thought this was important to share so here we go. When I heard about Apple Silicon I was very excited. When you think what they have done with iPad’s and iPhones that means so many amazing possibilities for Mac’s. And they don’t do processors like everyone else but rather a system on a chip (SoC) which means more efficiencies. And this is the first version of the Apple Silicon, and I suspect there is a lot of improvements and additions in the future.
Performance
Everything is faster. Programs starting, or adding pictures to something. Starting up is faster too. I am comparing with the MacBook Air I got in May so very current. Here is an article that has some benchmarks that will make it more empirical for you.
Applications - Universal
Universal apps are those with both Intel and Apple Silicon versions and the proper one is delivered from the App Store as required.
- Pages, Numbers, Keynote are all Apple Silicon native versions.
- OmniGraffle is native too thanks to it be a Universal.
Applications - the rest of them
My remaining apps were all good with one exception. SuperDuper - like other copy utilities doesn’t work with Big Sur due to changes under the hood. But they are working on it.
Horizon View, Tweetbot, 1Password, Evernote, NetNewswire and Scrivener 3 all worked good.
Update (5/18/21)
I have started to have some issues. It is a long time after I got this M1 MBA. Sometimes Slack will not start - after I exit it, until I restart the computer. Sometimes Tweetbot starts with no UI so I quit and start again and it works. These are minor issues and are occurring on radical new hardware so I cannot complain as I knew I might have issues.
Summary
This is the fastest computer I have ever owned, and with the very best battery life too. It is very exciting to work with, and I am very happy to have it. BTW, here is a review of the MBA M1 edition.
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