Apple unveiled its grand plan to move from Intel to using its own chips in the Mac in the future. The company has said that the transition will take nearly two years – moving apps to the new platform and also getting chip designs ready for different Mac models.
During the transition period, Apple will continue to release new Intel based Macs for a year or so. The company stressed on the point that Intel Macs won’t be phased out anytime soon and that they will be supported for years to come. However, the bigger question is whether the new upcoming Apple silicon based Macs will support apps created for the Intel Macs.
Apple has unveiled tools for developers to easily move their apps to the Apple silicon architecture Macs. However, not all developers may move their apps but Apple has got everything covered. The company has revealed “Rosetta 2” – its emulation technology.
Rosetta was originally used during the PowerPC to Intel transition back in 2006. The company is now releasing Rosetta 2 – a direct successor to the emulation technology which will enable apps created for the Intel Mac platform to run on Apple silicon based Macs.
Emulation of course has its negatives such as slow loading times and poor performance. However, during WWDC, Apple showed off the Maya application running on Rosetta 2 and the experience looked lag-free. We of course, cannot comment as to whether all applications will run similarly but at-least it’s possible to run each and every app from the Intel Mac on the future ARM based Macs.
Apple revealed during its annual developers conference that major software makers like Microsoft and Adobe have already begun working on native apps for the upcoming Apple silicon Macs. Most developers will soon get to work as well but if some developers do not, Rosetta 2 will take of it.