The Apple Silicon revolution was launched with the first products on the market, but now it is the software developers who have to respond and it seems that they are doing it en masse. Microsoft has just announced the arrival for everyone of the native Office suite for ARM architecture on Mac systems , and Mozilla has also updated Firefox for work without the need for code translation on Apple’s new systems with Apple M1. And the benefits are significant.

Native office on Apple Silicon systems

Until now, users of new Mac systems with Apple M1 SoCs have had to use the Rosetta 2 layer to translate the Office code and make it executable also through the ARM architecture of the integrated processor. However, Microsoft has announced an update that brings native support for the new chip with Apple custom microarchitecture to almost the entire Office suite : updated apps are Word , Excel , Outlook , PowerPoint and OneNote . The absence of Microsoft Teams stands out.

App updates make them “universal”, so downloading the package is guaranteed to run on both Apple Silicon and Intel processors. The benefit for users is that updates with features and general improvements will be released simultaneously on both platforms. What about Microsoft Teams? It will also arrive as a universal application and native support for Apple M1, however the company has not yet announced the release timing.

On the other hand the competition offers Slack, already available as a beta with native support for Apple’s new hardware platform, however companies that rely on Microsoft Teams have to settle for (we still don’t know for how long) the translated version with Rosetta 2.

The update should take place automatically on all eligible systems, but can also be forced through the Mac App Store (or the Microsoft update tool, if the software has not been installed via the native Big Sur store) for those who have already the Office suite installed on your system. Outlook users not only get native support for Apple Silicon, but also support for iCloud accounts with the ability to synchronize with the email app, contacts and calendars.

Native Firefox arrives on Apple M1 systems

In these hours Mozilla has also released its native Firefox version for Apple M1 and Apple Silicon systems , which is defined as carrying a “huge performance boost” than the previous non-optimized version. Startup times improve 2.5x and web apps are at least twice as responsive, according to proclamations from the development team. To get the different benefits of the update 84 it is necessary to force close the browser and run it again after installing the latest version .

Mozilla not only promises enormously improved performance, but also and above all greater energy efficiency which should produce a longer battery life with the use of the software. Note that Firefox 84 is also the latest version with Adobe Flash support .

Office and Firefox are just some of the apps already optimized to work natively on Apple Silicon. Among the many we mention Pixelmator Pro, Adobe Lightroom, Affinity Designer, Darkroom, Fantastical, OmniFocus, BBEdit, Instapaper and Twitter. The native support for Apple Silicon , according to Apple, opens the way for “revolutionary speed and capability” compared to the past with Intel CPUs. Apple M1 is found today on the new MacBook Pro 13 “and MacBook Air, along with the new Mac mini.