Oliver Haslam on June 24, 2020, 1:06 am

Big Sur Macs With Apple Silicon Will Run iPhone and iPad Apps Natively

Yesterday was a big day for Apple with the announcement that the company will move its Macs away from Intel’s chips in favor of its own Apple silicon. And while that’s huge, there was one thing that you might have missed during the announcement – Macs with Apple’s chips will natively run iPhone and iPad apps.

Currently, developers need to emulate iPhones and iPads when creating and testing apps but that won’t be the case anymore. Even more importantly for users, compatible iPhone and iPad apps will automatically appear in the Mac App Store.

Developers will be able to prevent their wares from popping up in the Mac App Store if they want, however.

Apple announced the transition to its own silicon yesterday and expects to be able to complete that transition within two years. In fact, it will even be ready to ship the first ARM-based Macs as soon as the end of this year, although we don’t yet know what those machines will be.

Apple is already offering a development machine that consists of a Mac mini shell with an Apple A12Z processor inside. That’s the same chip that powers the current iPad Pro and is also the device that Apple used to demonstrate macOS 11 Big Sur, too.

Apple’s move to its own silicon will hopefully allow for faster, cooler, and more power efficient Macs than anything Intel’s chips made possible. Fingers crossed it’ll have a positive impact on pricing, too.