Apple’s new M1 CPU Macs take advantage of a different architecture than Intel CPU Macs, and developers need to recompile their apps to optimize them for the new processor. Apple allows you to use older applications for Macs with Intel CPUs thanks to a technology called “ Rosetta 2 ” which converts Intel instructions into instructions compatible with the ARM architecture. The M1 SoC is a very powerful chip and it is possible to use without problems even very complex applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator and many others, not yet specifically optimized (many developers are at work and are releasing “Universal” versions of the various applications).
How to recognize the optimized apps and those that are not yet? It’s easy using macOS Big Sur on new Macs. Just click on the application icon, choose “Get Info” from the Finder’s “File” menu: a window appears with various details; to the right of the “Type” indication, the type of application appears with, possibly the indication “Universal”, a sign that the application in question is natively executable both on Macs with Intel CPUs and on those with CPUs M1 from Apple.
If the “Intel” indication appears to the right of the “Type:” indication, the app is written for Macs with Intel processors; if the indication “Apple Silicon” appears, the application is optimized for Apple Silicon and works only on this architecture.
It is interesting to note that, in the case of Universal applications, it is possible to check the “Open with Rosetta” option, forcing to execute the Intel code (useful, probably for test functions or to resolve any incompatibilities).
A different way to identify the type of app running on Mac M1s is to open the Activity Monitor utility and look at the “Architecture” column (available only on Macs with Intel CPUs: “Apple” or ” Intel “.
To see the type of architecture of all installed software, not just the software currently running, appear from the Apple menu the item “About this Mac”, select “System Report”, select “Software” in the left column and then “Applications”: after a few seconds (or minutes, it depends on how many disks are connected to the computer and how many folders with applications to check) the list of the various installed software will appear and the type of installed software, including any Universal programs, will appear in the “type” column (Apple Silicon + Intel), for the moment still rare.
