There’s a reason Apple isn’t switching immediately to its own processors and cutting off Intel support all at once. If you’re worried that buying a new ARM-based Mac will mean none of your old apps are supported, it’s an understandable concern, but you should be fine. With the switch to Apple’s own processors, it will be possible to write an app once and run it on most Apple devices with minimal modification.ĭo I Need to Buy An Intel Mac to Keep All My Old Apps? Developers making apps for both Macs and iPhones would have to do extra work to make their apps available on both platforms. As such, they live in their own separate world. But Apple’s other devices, including the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, use Apple’s own custom processors. Today, Macs are much more common, and it’s not as difficult to convince big developers to make apps for Apple’s platforms (some will even fight in court for the privilege). Among the benefits at the time, using the same processor architecture that comparable PCs used meant it was easier for developers to bring popular Windows apps to the Mac (or at least emulate the ones that didn’t get direct ports), ushering in a thriving era of compatibility and development for Mac users. Longtime Apple fans will recall that Apple made a similar transition from its PowerPC processors to Intel chips back in 2005.
