macOS Big Sur and M1 Macs

As the new version of macOS is around the corner and the first Macs with a new processor type will be shipped soon, I want to state that my apps are already fully compatible with both. Here’s the current state of things and what’s to expect in the near future.

macOS Big Sur makes many changes, visual ones especially, but those changes aren’t causing any problems to my apps.

Gamma Control, Black Light, Black Light Pro, Counterparts Lite, Sim Daltonism and Red Stripe are all ready for Big Sur as they are now.

The M1 chip in the new Macs uses a different instruction set than Intel processors in the previous models. But macOS can run most apps built for Intel by translating them using Rosetta. As a user, this happens without you noticing anything. I already tested all my apps and can confirm they all run fine using Rosetta.

There’s one thing I couldn’t verify myself in advance though: whether the new hardware supports setting the gamma correction curve. This is needed for Gamma Control, Black Light, and Black Light Pro to do what they do. I’ve been specifically told it should work. And given that some parts of macOS also depend on this I’m not expecting any problems.

I plan to update all my Mac apps in the coming weeks. They’ll get a nice new icon for Big Sur and some will gain interesting new features. They’ll also become universal so they can work natively on M1 without using Rosetta.