Will I need to reinstall programs when they release native ARM support for Apple's new M1 MacBooks?

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Will I need to reinstall programs when they release native ARM support for Apple's new M1 MacBooks?

Just purchased a new 2020 MacBook Air (I'm new to Macbooks in general) and right now only the x86_64 versions of many development tools I use are available. This worries me a bit since I understand that the new M1 MacBooks need to use Rosetta 2 to convert instructions to ARM, leading to performance loss.

When native M1 support arrives for programs such as Homebrew or VSCode, will I need need to uninstall the x86_64 version and install the M1 supported version? Or will these programs simply update to the M1 supported versions automatically?

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 11.0

Posted on Dec 12, 2020 1:29 PM

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Answer 1

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John Galt

Level 10

142,816 points

Dec 12, 2020 1:44 PM in response to Zentrios

It's up to the developers of those developer tools you use.

I recommend in the strongest possible terms that you use Xcode and not some third party cross-platform product. If you want to develop for macOS do it right or not at all.

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Will I need to reinstall programs when they release native ARM support for Apple's new M1 MacBooks?

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