Adobe Illustrator now supports Apple silicon, but only in beta

Macbook Air M1 (Image credit: Daniel Bader / iMore)

What you need to know

Adobe Illustrator has a new beta out with support for Apple silicon.
This is the first beta to include support for Apple's M1 chips with no date available for a public launch.

Adobe has made its first Apple silicon beta of Adobe Illustrator available to testers. Those with access to the Beta Apps section of the Creative Cloud app can download it on their M1-powered Macs right now.

Announced last week and spotted by MacRumors, this beta should bring improved performance thanks to the removal of the reliance on Rosetta 2 for x86 emulation. Adobe's announcement forum post says that many "core features" are already supported in this beta. It does sound like some parts of the app might not be fully functional just yet, however.

This early version of Illustrator for Apple Silicon offers many of the core features that you've come to rely on for your day-to-day needs. Please give it a try. We would love to hear your feedback.

Anyone who isn't already able to download betas from the Creative Cloud app can get in touch and ask to be added to the program, according to the post.

This beta comes a number of months after Adobe also released Apple silicon betas for its other creative cloud apps including Premiere Rish, Premiere Pro, and Audition.

Updates like this will become more important as Apple continues its rollout of Apple silicon and more Macs switch away from Intel. The vast majority of Apple's userbase is running Intel right now, but that will change as people buy new Macs in the coming years. The best Mac available today is an M1 Mac, for example.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.