Apple MacBook Air M1 laptop test

The transition to ARM processors is always accompanied by the biggest concerns of application compatibility. After a long test of dozens of applications, however, I can say that Apple managed this very bold step.

As at school: we will delete the sentence “x86 processors belong to computers, ARMs to mobile phones and tablets” once and for all. Students in their workbooks, teachers in textbooks. After the unsalted, non-greasy flirting of Microsoft with these processors in its Tablet-notebooks Surface, Apple also started to rebirth, giving Intel a wave. This is not a hasty or ill-considered step, Apple switched to Intel processors from IBM PowerPC processors in 2006. The change at that time meant an immediate increase in performance with significantly lower consumption.

However, switching between different architectures is always a major complication: applications written for one architecture cannot run on another. This was also the case in 2006, and Apple solved the problem with an intermediate layer called Rosetta, which automatically translated the old application for the new processor. Although it is fourteen years old, I remember as it is today that Rosetta was no miracle when it came to compatibility and speed. The rebirth took several years, and applications that the creators did not want to translate remained a thing of the past.

With this old aftertaste on the floor of all the witnesses, Apple computer lovers feared the transition from Intel processors to ARM processors called the Apple Silicon, in the first version known as the M1. Apple announced new processor kits for developers so they could optimize their applications for new processors. And for the lazy, or for programs that no longer have their developers, Apple has prepared the Rosetta 2. Compatibility and speed issues are again the most pressing issues, as they were fourteen years ago.