Photoshop for Apple’s M1 Macs is available in beta
Just don't expect all your favorite features to work.
The reviews are in and they’re almost unanimous: Apple’s new M1 chip is blazing fast, but it’s going to take a while before the apps people depend on to do their work are optimized to take advantage of the new architecture. Case and point: Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite, which you can currently only use through Apple’s Rosetta 2 emulator, leading to a less than ideal experience. But the good news is that Adobe has released the first beta release of Photoshop for Apple Silicon.
And when Adobe says beta, it means beta. You won’t find some of the software’s most useful features, including content aware fill and photomerge, in this first release. Moreover, Adobe warns other features, such as subject select, may be buggy or slow to work. Oh, you also won’t be able to open all file formats.
“This is not a fully functioning version of Photoshop; it contains several limitations compared to the more widely available version of Photoshop for Macintosh,” the company says. “Over time, more features will be made available.”
If you’re the adventurous sort, you can download the beta starting today and help Adobe by sending it feedback. Keep in mind the company is not officially supporting this release, so you won’t be able to get support if something goes wrong. Still, this is an important first step for both Adobe and Apple on the way to making ARM Macs useful to creatives.