Some Mac software has made it all the way from 68K to M1 - here's why

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2021
Mac developers are currently in the midst of a major hardware architecture transition. But for some app makers, this is the third time that they have done this.

Credit: Apple

After years of rumors, Apple announced the transition to first-party Apple Silicon chips in 2020. Then the first Macs with a proprietary M1 processor launched in November -- and apps started taking advantage of the new speed.

Although the transition is expected to take two years in total, Apple offered a system and devices to make the process easier on both consumers and developers. Existing apps that work with macOS Big Sur can -- at least in theory -- simply run as normal on M1.

But developers can also rebuild their software to make them native M1 apps. Even before anyone could buy an Apple Silicon Mac to try out, Apple issued a Developer Transition Kit and made app recompiling straightforward in the latest release of Xcode.

For many macOS app developers, this may be the first change in processor technology that they've experienced. Other developers have been down this road in the past, though.

And for a select number of developers, this road has actually been travelled three times before.

A familiar transition

Back in 1992, the Mac was eight years old and still running on versions of the original Motorola 68000 processor. Though Apple had internally started the shift to PowerPC the year before, it would take until 1994 for the new Macs to come out.

It was a successful move in terms of just how smoothly it had been handled for customers, developers, and Apple itself. However, this transition to PowerPC instead of Intel was ultimately deemed a mistake by then-CEO John Sculley. In his view, Apple ultimately wasn't able to compete on price against Intel-equipped PCs made by other manufacturers.

Once that hardware transition was done, and after a couple of acquisitions including Steve Jobs' NeXT, Apple was soon moving to replace the old MacOS 9 with the radically different OS X. Again, Apple managed the transition for users by making it possible to keep running older apps.

What those users, and perhaps most app developers, did not know then was that when Apple brought out OS X, it was already looking to move to Intel processors. Every version of OS X was simultaneously made for both PowerPC and Intel.

Even so, the actual transition to Intel x86 architecture wasn't unveiled until Jobs made the announcement in 2005.

Apple would ultimately ditch PowerPC in 2006 and, over a decade on, that transition is practically forgotten. One reason is that Apple did then exactly what it's promising to do now by easing the route for developers.

However, another reason comes down to those developers. They didn't just transition their apps, they made apps that leveraged the new processors or the new operating system.

They made us want to buy the new Macs. That's the same now with Apple Silicon M1 as it was back with PowerPC.

What's startlingly different, though, is just how few apps and developers have managed to keep up with all of Apple's hardware and software transitions. With that in mind, here are the key apps that survived each change and currently support Apple's M1 chip.

Bare Bones BBEdit

If you use text editors on a daily basis, you'll probably appreciate the ease of use and power of BBEdit.
If you use text editors on a daily basis, you'll probably appreciate the ease of use and power of BBEdit.


Mac developer Rich Siegel first announced the release of text editor BBEdit in April 1992. Although it was freeware during its initial release, it was eventually commercialized in 1993. Over the years, BBEdit support for many new Apple technologies, very shortly after release. That includes some that didn't last, such as OpenDoc.

It's a simple utility designed for software development, writers, website designers, and others that work with text. It can handle a range of tasks, including editing, searching and manipulating text. Some of its special features include syntax coloring for multiple coding languages and macOS scripting support.

As of 2020, BBEdit is currently available for Apple Silicon devices and is still a popular text editor.

It's available to use for free with a basic set of features from either the Bare Bones website or the Mac App Store. Users who want to access the full suite of features can buy it for a one-time fee on the website, or on a subscription basis from the Mac App Store.

Panic - Transmit

Panic Transmit allows for a range of server syncing and transfer features.
Panic Transmit allows for a range of server syncing and transfer features.


File transfer app Panic Transmit has also been around for years. As noted in a tweet, the software has supported 68K, PowerPC, Intel, and Apple Silicon during its run. It's easy to use, has a good set of features, and sports a streamlined UI.

Panic Transmit supports a range of cloud services, including Box and Google Drive. For users with more complicated server workflows, it also handles FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, and S3.

It allows users to easily upload, download, and manage files on servers. There are also advanced syncing features, a key generation and management tool, and a batch rename utility.

Transmit 5 is currently available from the Mac App Store or Panic's website. From the former, it's available for $24.99 a year. Users can also buy a perpetual license for $45 from the site.

Lemke Software - GraphicConverter

GraphicConverter isn't flashy, but it packs a full set of image management and editing features.
GraphicConverter isn't flashy, but it packs a full set of image management and editing features.


GraphicConverter, an image editing program, has also been around since the 68K days. Developer Lemke Software says that GraphicConverter has more than 1.5 million users across the globe.

A full-fledged utility for managing graphic file, GraphicConverter supports the import of about 200 formats and the export of about 80. That includes everything from PDF and PNG to PSD, RAW, or PTG. If there's a graphic file you need to convert, it can probable handle it.

Users can also expect the ability to directly import from a camera, an organizational suite aimed at managing and displaying graphic files, and a set of image editing features. The editing features include effects, color management, and geodata functions.

The versatile image app can be purchased for a one-time fee of $39.95 from the Lemke Software website.

StuffIt Expander

StuffIt's UI is as simple as it gets -- in the best way possible.
StuffIt's UI is as simple as it gets -- in the best way possible.


StuffIt is also one of the oldest Mac apps still available as of 2020. Originally developed in 1987, the app offers various tools and utilities for archiving, compressing, and expanding files.

The Mac operating system comes with an Archive tool, but it doesn't support every compressed file format out there. StuffIt, on the other hand, can decompress RAR, TAR, GZIP, BZIP, 7zip, MIME, BinHex, and more. Users can handle files created with WinZip, SimplyRAR, and a range of other compression software.

Although it was produced solely for the 68K Macintosh lineup at the time, StuffIt versions for Windows, Linux, and Sun Solaris were eventually released.

It's also a free download from the Mac App Store. For users with a multi-device workflow, there's also an iOS version.

Microsoft Word and Excel

Microsoft Word on Apple Silicon M1
Microsoft Word on Apple Silicon M1


The received wisdom is that Excel was invented on the Mac, but in truth Microsoft's plan for world domination in spreadsheets began earlier than that. Microsoft brought out Multiplan in 1982, but Excel itself did arrive on the Mac first.

Similarly, Word had its predecessors before the Mac version, and its text-based DOS version actually supported a mouse. The Mac had been on sale for a year before Microsoft Word 1.0 was released for it in January 1985, but Word has been on the platform ever since.

It wasn't always the most harmonious relationship between Word and the Mac, or even between Word and its users. When Apple transitioned from Motorola to PowerPC, Word for Windows had been such a success that Microsoft tried to simply port that over to the new processor.

That Word 6 for Mac was not a hit, but it wasn't because of Microsoft's failing to keep up with the PowerPC move. It was entirely a design decision, and subsequent versions for PowerPC were effectively developed specifically for the Mac.

Then when it came time to move to OS X, Microsoft went for it with 2001's release of Word X for Mac. It didn't add many features, but it required OS X to run and Word was such a force in business that this surely helped establish the new operating system.

Microsoft wasn't as quick with the move to the Intel processor, which is perhaps odd given the company's close ties to that chip maker. While Apple began the transition in 2006, Microsoft didn't release an Intel-native edition until Word 2008, in January 2008.

Similarly, Excel became a native PowerPC app only in 1993 with its version 5.0. And it became an Intel-native app when released as part of Office 2008 alongside Word.

Today, all of what is now sold as Office 365 is on its way to being Apple Silicon M1-native.

Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator

All Adobe apps are coming to Apple Silicon M1
All Adobe apps are coming to Apple Silicon M1


Of all the developers who have stuck with Apple through its hardware and software transitions, maybe none owe that company as much as Adobe does. In turn, Apple owes a huge amount right back at Adobe.

Together, Adobe and Apple created the desktop publishing market. If you had to bet which firm would make its major creative apps keep up with Apple's moves, you would put your cash on Adobe.

You just might occasionally wonder whether that was a good idea. Adobe didn't exactly rush to make Intel-native versions of Photoshop and Illustrator, but it did get there in the end. And now it was one of the very first to bring out any Apple Silicon M1 apps, in the form of Lightroom.

Photoshop and Illustrator are both coming though, and are both in at least some stage of public beta release already.

Speaking in 2019, Adobe co-founder Chuck Geschke said "we have never, ever abandoned Apple and we don't want to abandon them today."

More to come

There will be more long-standing apps that make the leap to running natively on Apple Silicon M1, but none that have announced the move yet.

You can be certain that FileMaker Pro will make the move, though. As originally an Apple app, and today made by a wholly Apple-owned subsidiary, it's not a surprise that FileMaker Pro has made it through the moves from 68000 to PowerPC and Intel.

The company has confirmed full support for Big Sur, so the latest FileMaker Pro will certainly run on M1, but there's not been any word on a native release.

App staying power

Developers who move their apps on through multiple hardware and significant software transitions must clearly have skill. But they must equally clearly have sales.

None of them would invest the time and effort if they didn't believe that it would be repaid by customers buying their apps. Any developer might personally be excited by a transition and all the technological advances it can bring, but to survive in business, you have to earn some cash.

It's a gamble that not all developers were always willing to make. And it was a gamble that not all of them were able to afford to make, either.

Today it looks clear that Apple Silicon is a giant advance that it's going to be a success. It was a lot less clear when the Intel processor was adopted, and it was practically murky when the PowerPC came along.

So we have lost major developers along the way, perhaps most often at transition times. If an app was just holding on, then being forced to invest in rebuilding or redesign it for a new platform was surely the last gasp for some.

However, the transitions equally surely helped boost each of those developers who did make the jump. They had to be producing apps that made a significant difference to their users, and then they had to have those apps benefit from the greater speed each transition bought.

The list of apps that have made it all the way from the 1980s Motorola 68000 to the 2020s Apple Silicon M1 may be shorter than you'd hope. But each of these apps, from tiny graphics utility to enormous Office suites, has become a crucial part of the Mac experience.
watto_cobrarazorpit
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 50
    This is a great article and interesting to me as a Mac user since 1984 to look back at the various transitions.  Arguably perhaps the most complex app that has gone through all these transitions is 4th Dimension (now 4D) who has stuck with Apple through thick and thin.  In addition to being a rapid app generator, it includes a web server, a word processing and spreadsheet and now object oriented development environment an rapid iOS app generator.  And this has been natively ported through all these transitions and what is most interesting to me is that the original developer of this software Laurent Ribardiere is still I believe at the company and guiding this latest transition to Apple Silicon, which will also include a compiler for Apple Silicon to generate native code for the apps created.  Perhaps this might deserve a separate article, but I would have thought should at least be included in this list of Mac original developers?
    viclauyyckillroyiqatedowatto_cobrad_2docno42svanstrom
  • Reply 2 of 50
    When will I stop receiving onscreen messages telling me 3rd Party Software installed on my Mac won’t be compatible with a future version of Mac OS and to contact the developer? It’s not the customers job to remind the developer to update their software to be compatible. 
    mac_dogtokyojimuwatto_cobradarkvader
  • Reply 3 of 50
    Sculley was wrong about Apple’s transition to PowerPC: had Apple gone to Intel back then, without benefit of Jobs and the iMac and clean architecture of OS X, the Macintosh would have most likely devolved into a no-value-added PC clone and the company would have disappeared by now.   
    bloggerblogcg27jdb8167killroyraoulduke42seanjwatto_cobramike54
  • Reply 4 of 50
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,928administrator
    When will I stop receiving onscreen messages telling me 3rd Party Software installed on my Mac won’t be compatible with a future version of Mac OS and to contact the developer? It’s not the customers job to remind the developer to update their software to be compatible. 
    Given that Apple's been saying it publicly for three years, I'm not sure what other venues are left.
    longpathkillroyDAalsethseanjwatto_cobrarundhviddocno42chia
  • Reply 5 of 50
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,309member
    When will I stop receiving onscreen messages telling me 3rd Party Software installed on my Mac won’t be compatible with a future version of Mac OS and to contact the developer? It’s not the customers job to remind the developer to update their software to be compatible. 
    Who's job is it? Apples? Not really. Apple sends out all sorts of information to developers but unless consumers make a stink to the developers, they won't put in the time or energy to update their software, especially free stuff. What macOS version are you on and what software is not compatible? We're only talking about Big Sur not M1-based Macs, at least not yet.
    omar moralesmac_doglongpathkillroyseanjwatto_cobradocno42
  • Reply 6 of 50
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,597member
    When will I stop receiving onscreen messages telling me 3rd Party Software installed on my Mac won’t be compatible with a future version of Mac OS and to contact the developer? It’s not the customers job to remind the developer to update their software to be compatible. 
    When you update, and those apps either break because the developer is long-gone, or you buy the existing compatible versions.

    As Mike said, if the developer doesn't have a version of the app compatible with Catalina/Big Sur by now, they aren't going to. And it absolutely IS your job to check with the developer to see if they've made a compatible version, and to upgrade to it if one is available. If there is no 64-bit version of the app, then you need to find a new app to do the same job.

    You can certainly stay with Mojave (the last version that supported 32-bit apps) for a little while yet, but its not a realistic option for much longer and going forward. Times change, and this has happened before and we all managed to survive it -- you will too.
    omar moralesmac_doglongpathkillroyfahlmandocno42chia
  • Reply 7 of 50
    rcfarcfa Posts: 1,124member
    CPU instruction set architectures barely are relevant, that’s what compilers are for (sure, in times of slow computers, there were pieces of hand optimized machine code here and there for better performance, but hardly anyone is still doing that)

    the big transitions are:

    Mac OS 9 => Mac OS X ++ (proprietary to Unix based)
    Carbon => Cocoa (utterly different API)
    big endian => little endian 
    32bit => 64bit (software can break because data structure sizes may change)

    These changes matter A LOT more than if there’s some Motorola CPU or another, some intel, sparc, MIPS, hp-pa, or ARM chip in there.

    NeXT had a quad-fat OS with quad-fat binaries, and it was “just normal”.
    cg27killroyrundhvidwatto_cobrasvanstrom
  • Reply 8 of 50
    john.bjohn.b Posts: 2,742member
    *cough* PCalc *cough*
    zeus423marklarkrazorpit
  • Reply 9 of 50
    mac_dogmac_dog Posts: 1,083member
    I’m reminded how long it took both quark & Adobe to bring their flagship products up to date. Don’t remember the software version, but it was painfully slow. They tried to squeeze as much money out of the existing versions they could, and made any number of bullshit exudes as to the delay. That being said, they had no competitors. Now, there are a few solid competitors out there who are younger, leaner, more hungry and aren’t resting on their laurels.

    so, basically, as was already stated. If they haven’t already transitioned, they are either extinct or DIW (seafaring term for “dead in the water”). 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 50
    hexclockhexclock Posts: 1,312member
    The ftp client Fetch has been around forever, since 1989. I don’t think it’s been updated for M1 yet, but it is still actively developed so I imagine it will be. 

    edited December 2020 longpathkillroymarklarkwatto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 50
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,928administrator
    mac_dog said:
    I’m reminded how long it took both quark & Adobe to bring their flagship products up to date. Don’t remember the software version, but it was painfully slow. They tried to squeeze as much money out of the existing versions they could, and made any number of bullshit exudes as to the delay. That being said, they had no competitors. Now, there are a few solid competitors out there who are younger, leaner, more hungry and aren’t resting on their laurels.

    so, basically, as was already stated. If they haven’t already transitioned, they are either extinct or DIW (seafaring term for “dead in the water”). 
    There's a reason why we didn't include Quark on the list.
    longpathkillroyzeus423watto_cobraRayz2016chia
  • Reply 12 of 50
    When will I stop receiving onscreen messages telling me 3rd Party Software installed on my Mac won’t be compatible with a future version of Mac OS and to contact the developer? It’s not the customers job to remind the developer to update their software to be compatible. 
    Given that Apple's been saying it publicly for three years, I'm not sure what other venues are left.
    Or avenues even! 🤣
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 50
    FileMaker April 1985
    marklarkrazorpithexclockwatto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 50
    For me, from back when my work computer was a Mac IIci, until today, MacTracker has been instrumental in my work, keeping tracks of the upgradability of Macs so informed decisions can be made as to what to upgrade and what to replace.
    mobirdzeus423watto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 50
    Stellar77 said:
    This is a great article and interesting to me as a Mac user since 1984 to look back at the various transitions.  Arguably perhaps the most complex app that has gone through all these transitions is 4th Dimension (now 4D) who has stuck with Apple through thick and thin.  In addition to being a rapid app generator, it includes a web server, a word processing and spreadsheet and now object oriented development environment an rapid iOS app generator.  And this has been natively ported through all these transitions and what is most interesting to me is that the original developer of this software Laurent Ribardiere is still I believe at the company and guiding this latest transition to Apple Silicon, which will also include a compiler for Apple Silicon to generate native code for the apps created.  Perhaps this might deserve a separate article, but I would have thought should at least be included in this list of Mac original developers?
    4D?? I can't believe that PoS is still around.

    Actually, I suppose that's not fair as I haven't looked at it in 20 years. But I still remember when it first came out. After the intense disappointment that was Helix, I was really hoping for something useful. 4D wasn't it though. I got an early Beta, and three days later sent them a huge long list of showstopper bugs. All I got back was some BS from Guy Kawasaki (remember him?) telling me how great it was going to be. Spoiler: It wasn't. I even tried to reach Ribardiere but he was firewalled (and not on any email I could find). It shipped with almost all of those bugs still in, and it was completely unusable for serious work.

    The sad thing is, it took a PC developer (Fox Software) to eventually write a good Mac database app - FoxBase was the first one you could actually use for industrial-strength apps, and for a while it was the best thing you could get on any platform. You could make Omnis 3 work, with enough effort, but the dev environment was unspeakably awful and probably 20-50x more time consuming than a regular text editor. And there was that other one, I forget its name, that included some sort of Forth interpreter, that could also be made to work... if you wanted to code in Forth (another spoiler: just no. Worst gig ever).

    When Fox came along it was a breath of fresh air - tinged with ozone, as it was lightning-fast, sometimes tens or even hundreds of times faster than 4D, Omnis, etc.

    So anyway... If they somehow managed to fix 4D, good for them. But I still remember what it was like (through several releases, before I gave up). There isn't enough money in the world to get me to go back and try using it again.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 50
    XedXed Posts: 2,882member
    Are people really using and 3rd-party compression and FTP apps? Personally, I haven't needed ether in well over a decade. Modern option make FTP less than ideal for any need I may have and I haven't seen a non-Zip file that macOS couldn't unpack for countless years.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 50
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,928administrator
    alanh said:
    When will I stop receiving onscreen messages telling me 3rd Party Software installed on my Mac won’t be compatible with a future version of Mac OS and to contact the developer? It’s not the customers job to remind the developer to update their software to be compatible. 
    Given that Apple's been saying it publicly for three years, I'm not sure what other venues are left.
    Or avenues even! 🤣
    I meant venues. Avenues works too.
    Dogpersonchia
  • Reply 18 of 50
    Xed said:
    Are people really using and 3rd-party compression and FTP apps? Personally, I haven't needed ether in well over a decade. Modern option make FTP less than ideal for any need I may have and I haven't seen a non-Zip file that macOS couldn't unpack for countless years.
    "FTP" apps these days are really FTP + SFTP + FTP/S + SCP + WebDAV + Amazon S3 +... lots of other things, typically. Some come with extras that will allow the Finder to mount (S)FTP volumes read/write (as shipped, the finder treats FTP as read-only), and maybe other things (S3) also. They have their uses.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 50
    avon b7avon b7 Posts: 8,021member
    iCab!

    Ported from Atari originally and ran on 68K towards the end. 

    I love developers that stand by their products and somehow manage stay in close contact with their users. 

    Alexander Clauss has stuck it out through thick and thin and always got back to me whenever I ran into an issue. Often within minutes. 

    As mentioned in the article, Graphic Converter is another example. I lost count of the times Lemke would get a beta out to me to check if a bug I'd found had been squashed . Sometimes on the same day I reported it. 
    muthuk_vanalingamrundhvidchia
  • Reply 20 of 50
    razorpitrazorpit Posts: 1,796member
    john.b said:
    *cough* PCalc *cough*
    I was thinking that.
    FileMaker April 1985
    And that.
    Xed said:
    Are people really using and 3rd-party compression and FTP apps? Personally, I haven't needed ether in well over a decade. Modern option make FTP less than ideal for any need I may have and I haven't seen a non-Zip file that macOS couldn't unpack for countless years.
    I had to use an FTP about a year ago per a customer's request. They're always right, right?

    MacOS doesn't handle RAR files too well. There's some version of them you have to download software for. We get a lot of them from our offices in China. I don't know why they are so in love with RAR. I've been trying to get them off of it for 6 years now. They just refuse to use ZIP.
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