[How To] Find Out Which Apps are Optimized for M1 Apple Silicon MacBooks

There is no denying that the new MacBooks that Apple recently launched took the world by surprise as they proved to be ridiculously fast and delivered exceptional performance. We have seen benchmarks and results and how things work, so you know that the M1 powered MacBooks are going strong.

However, with the new chip, there are some obvious issues. For instance, most apps are not optimized for the new M1 Macs at the time of writing, and while developers are working on releasing them, there is a laundry list of apps that are still waiting to be optimized.

So, how do you tell which app is optimized and which is not? Well, thankfully, there's a handy guide that will allow checking the status of the app. But before you do that, you have to understand what it is and how it works.

Here is How You Can Check Whether the App is Optimized for Your New M1 MacBook or Not

When developers update their apps to make sure that they are working natively on the Apple chip, they have to use Universal binary. Universal apps originally referred to apps that could run natively on both PowerPC or Intel Macs; however, last year, Apple announced Universal 2, which allowed apps to run on both Intel-based Macs and Macs with Apple chips.

This basically means that if an app has been updated to Universal 2, it will work on both Intel and Apple-based Macs. If not, it will still work, but through the Rosetta 2 emulation.

If you are trying to figure out which app is optimized or not, here is how you can do it.

• Step 1: Click the Apple symbol on the top-left corner of your Mac's menu.
• Step 2: Choose About This Mac.
• Step 3: Click on System Report... button in the Overview tab.
• Step 4: In the System Report window, choose Software, and then choose Applications in the sidebar.
• Step 5: Once the application list loads, look under the Kind column to see whether an app is a Universal binary or non-native Intel executable.

In addition to that, you can also check for individual apps. Right-click on the app's icon in the Finder, then choose Get Info from the contextual menu and look at its Kind under General.

Last but not least, you can head over here and see whether an app is ready for Apple silicon or not. This is a great way of making sure that your new MacBook has all the apps you want to use and ensures a proper overall experience.