Here, attention to the developer tool chain set the stage for a seamless transition, allowing us to spend more time fixing issues in our own code and not fighting with finicky developer tooling issues.

'But re-factoring all of Photoshop’s dependencies to run in native mode was the necessary first step toward unlocking real performance gains from the hardware.

'Fortunately, Apple’s Rosetta mode allowed Photoshop to run reliably and fast on M1 devices on day one, without requiring significant changes to the code base. And many features were running as fast, or even faster than on the previous systems, so those earlier questions about performance were being resolved quite satisfactorily. So perhaps the initial scope of the project was a little intimidating as we got underway.'ĭuring the migration, what were the biggest challenges? How closely was Adobe able to work with Apple on the project? 'Each and every one of those supporting libraries, contributed to Photoshop from nearly every corner of the Adobe engineering world, would have to be written to support Apple silicon, and on the fastest possible schedule. 'Also, over the years Photoshop’s capabilities have extended beyond just core image editing to a variety of useful additional services dynamic font activation, cloud sync technology, machine-learning features and installer deployment services, all to make a wide range of creative workflows beyond image editing easier and smoother. 'For one, performance is top-of-mind for our creative professional customers, so we wondered how long it might take for us to match the years of performance-tuning that ensured smooth operation for Photoshop’s sophisticated blending and rendering capabilities. 'Photoshop has been fortunate enough to have been serving Mac customers for over 30 years, and having lived through the transition from Power PC to Intel chips in the 2005/2006 timeframe, a few familiar considerations came to mind as the Apple silicon announcement was made.

Adobe acrobat macbook m1