Josh Hendrickson
By all accounts, Apple’s new hardware with custom M1 processors is powerful, long-lasting, and quiet. But, M1 processors are ARM-based, and not all software will work natively. Instead, developers need to update programs to work with ARM. Until now, that meant you had to use Rosetta to make a Zoom call on Apple hardware running an M1 processor. But Zoom’s latest update solves that problem.
Zoom has had quite the year, thanks to the global pandemic. The company went from relatively obscure and unknown to seemingly used by half the world. We’re all working from home, and that means more video conferencing than ever. After a few rocky bumps in the road, the company seems to have squared things away, and now it’s on the path to solid improvements to the service. It even made goodwill gestures, like lifting time limits for the holidays.
But a video conferencing suite is only good as the places you can use it. Thankfully Zoom is natively compatible on most platforms, from smartphones to Macs and PCs. Except for the new ARM-based Macs, of course. Instead, you had to use Apple’s emulation software, Rosetta, to run the program. But that came with performance issues. Zoom’s new update solves that issue. The news comes via the company’s update notes in its latest macOS update.
Zoom plans to release a standalone installer specifically for MacBooks and other Apple devices using an M1 Processor. But the company made a change to use a “universal binary” scheme. “Universal binary” programs can run natively on Intel-based processors and ARM-based processors. That’s handy, as you won’t have to spend any time figuring out what version of the software to download.
Zoom says it already released the update, and you can download it from the company’s site now.
