Difference Between Universal Apps and Intel Apps (and Why It Matters for Your Mac M1)
Apple M1 Macs are renowned for their speed, and for good reason: they wake up right away and complete tasks, often without even worrying. You might think your M1 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, or Mac mini maintains this level of performance no matter what you throw at it; However, as it turns out, the apps you use have a big impact on this.
A bit of history M1
You may have noticed that some applications on your M1 Mac open instantly and run like butter, while others bounce around on the dock before launching a little sluggishly. There is a reason for this; not all apps are made for the M1. For the uninitiated, the M1 is the first Apple chip designed for their Mac computers; in fact, Apple is now making its own brains for its computers.
For years, Intel has made all processors and integrated graphics for Apple, while AMD has made dedicated graphics cards for specific machines. Apple combines its own processor, graphics card, memory, and more on one high-performance chip. But it’s not just the hardware; Because Apple makes both hardware and software for its Mac computers, it can fine-tune and optimize this experience, which most companies cannot.
Apps are either optimized for M1 or Intel.
Of course, app developers can also optimize their apps for the M1. When they do this, third-party apps can work just like Apple apps, providing excellent computing experience. Applications are divided into two versions: “General Purpose” (sometimes “Apple Silicon”), optimized for Intel and M1-based Mac computers, and “Intel”, optimized for Intel computers.
You can still run Intel apps on the M1 Mac, they just need to go through an emulator called Rosetta 2. This experience is not optimized for the M1, so you probably won’t get the performance from Intel apps you run from generic apps.
How to check if your apps are optimized for M1
It is easy to check which applications you have: Intel or Universal. Click the Apple icon in the upper left corner, press and hold the Option key, then choose System Information . In the Software section , click Applications . Here you will find complete lists of applications on your computer. Take a look at the Kind tab at the end; this will tell you if the app is Intel or generic. If you want to sort the list by this indicator, just click ” View” .
The point is, your Mac might have Intel apps that might be universal apps. For example, if you migrated your apps from an old non-M1 Mac, they might have migrated to their Intel version. If you have an app that you know has an M1 version, such as Chrome, you can uninstall and reinstall it to run the M1-optimized app on your Mac. Just go back to the system information to make sure the M1 version is now on your computer.
Also, when you download apps from the internet, notice if they have app download options for the M1 or for Intel-based Macs. If so, be sure to download the M1 version. If there is no option and the application shows up as “Intel” on your Mac, it is most likely that there is no M1 version.