Will Adobe Illustrator be compatible on the new Macbook Pro with the Apple M1 chip?

[Nikki Lou]

Hi, Looking to purchase the new Apple Macbook Pro with their new M1 chip. I use Adobe Illustrator for my work and I'm conserned about if the software will still run on this new M1 chip and if I will still be able to access all my saved files. Can anyone give any detail?

Thanks

[Monika Gause]

I've still got a 12 year old Mac and there's no way I could work faster in Affinity Designer on an M1 than in the old version of Illustrator on my museum hardware, because of the severe lack of basic functionality in Affinity Designer.

So I'm not sure what you're hoping to gain with that switch.

[marcossilva-BRA]

So far, it works, but yes, I miss the library, third-party dimensions plugin and the ability to work faster because I know Illustrator for many years. At least I can use my new MacBook pro with Affinity for the time being. It's actually a pretty robust software with lots of potentials.

[carrieh42466168]

My brain may freeze up on me if I tried to temporarily replace Illustrator with Affinity. lol. My hands just know what to do without my brain having to do the work. 😄 

[marcossilva-BRA]

PROBLEM SOLVED!

I'm posting this, so maybe it can help others out there.

I read on another post here in the Adobe Community that somebody suggested to turn off the iCloud. I did, and after that, I've been testing it for 4 hours, and I'm pretty happy with it. I was about to put my M1 in the box and return it, but now it's perfect.

I tested with all apps opened and more than 50 files all at once, and it's super quick. Photoshop Beta, Illustrator, Indesign (I use it a lot, they are heavy files), Excel, Word, Acrobat PDF (combined many files), Safari and Chrome with many tabs open the same time.

Well, at least this was the problem with my machine. It's great to have the community to help.

[Nikki Lou]

Hi, that's great news. Glad you've found a work around! What are the steps to turning off iCloud? 

[marcossilva-BRA]

I just opened system preferences and unchecked "iCloud Drive" inside the AppleID > iCloud tab.

I also turned off all the GPU Performance in the Illustrator preferences.

My M1 got only 8Mb of Ram, and it's working like a charm after I did these settings.

[adamr96949156]

Yes, a can vouch; this worked for me too. Obviously, it is a short-term solution as your iCloud is switched off, horrible if you use multiple Apple devices. This provides a temporary solution until Adobe gets its act together to support the M1 Chip properly. Adobe, You seriously need to do a lot of catching-up to-do, to support the M1 chip. You are potentially losing out on a lot of Apple customers who may switch to other software solutions. Apple's M1 is here to stay...are you? Apple has been working on the M1 chip for many years and shared information with Adobe well in advance of its launch - no excuses.

[Doug A Roberts]

If anyone is reading this and planning to get a new Mac, I would read Ashutosh's link and wait until next year when wider native support is more likely.

[future-astronauts]

I bought an M1 13" MBP and found Illustrator to be nearly unusable. Photoshop was no picnic either. Lightroom worked fairly well, but had a few hiccups. To be fair, I had plenty of "Application not responding" issues with native Apple apps, too. All said, the combined issues were disruptive enough for me to ship the laptop back to Apple. Hoping it was a lemon. Ordered a new unit, due end of December.

Meanwhile, it's a bummer to realize Adobe's timeline is so incomplete. As one of their engineers said to me a few years ago, "We develop in silos here," expressing his disdain for the lack of communication between Adobe app teams. I'm guessing that hasn't changed. All that money and no means of more effective development, and/or collaboration with Apple. We need competition for Adobe (and Apple).

[marcossilva-BRA]

I had the same issues with other apps, but I realized that once I restart my mac and never open Adobe apps, everything else runs pretty fast and smooth. So I think Rosetta 2 is causing these issues. I won't open Adobe anymore on the M1 until they release the updates. Luckily I still didn't sell my old MacBook.

[Guest]

I have the same issues. Until i don't open any Adobe app everything works. After i open AI the app and system freezes randomly, other apps too. So i use now Affinity Designer, photo and publisher. Everything works perfect.

Adobe apps look like crap and work like crap. Sadly.

[Monika Gause]

"So i use now Affinity Designer, photo and publisher. Everything works perfect."

Except that Affinity Designer doesn't work perfectly. At all:

[Guest]

What did you do to get that? If i draw 5 circles i don't see that.

If i wasn't clear, i wanna use AI, PS, but i can't. Adobe is so slow on updating the apps.

[Monika Gause]

How you get that?

Draw the circles and use the Divide operation on them.

Since Affinity Designer doesn't have a flood fill (Shapebuilder, let alone live paint), the Divide operation is the only function that allows you some efficiency. But it's crap.

[Guest]

Yes, i can reproduce that now. Didn't need this till this test.

Adobe apps are slow. Adobe is slow on updating. They need to rewrite their apps with up-to-date technologies. Affinity apps fly on M1, on my old mac mini...

Hoppe we will get the needed updates asap. Now i have to export all ai files to affinity and work there till apple updates their apps.

[marcossilva-BRA]

I'm returning my M1 today. If anyone is reading this post and is looking to buy an M1, don't! It's not worth to lose your brain and hair, if you have any. 

It's not worth to change software when you are used to Adobe for many years either. So I'll wait an year until things get settled. 

[Rosan5E57]

I'm confused. You're still returning the M1 macbook after you've found a work around with the icloud settings and GPU performance?

[tiffrenee87]

I dont know about marcossilva but I am.  Work around or not, I dont want a $1500+ computer that I have to tweak to make work with my programs.  Once apple and adobe get on the same page I will think about joining in the party again.  Just my opinion. 🙂 

[jasonh91035187]

Hey I really appreciate you posting this. Like everyone else here who depends on Illustrator for their livelihood I've found myself in a predicament. My 2018 15" MacBook Pro is getting long in the tooth and since upgrading to Big Sur it's definitely showing it's age and I'm not doing a ton of activities that are computationally heavy. I'm taking it in tomorrow for a battery replacement and I thought - hey what about a trade in for an m1 mac. After all, the benchmarks and hype make these out to be some kind of super computer. I guess not though. So sadly I just lugged my drawing tablet over to my 9 year olds gaming computer and things are working great. But I'm kind of bummed about all of this, there doesn't seem to be an upgrade path for right now - at least on a Mac.

[jacquesr3733584]

For me illustrator is still working good with my new M1 MacBook Air. I have not experienced any problem for now.

[Danielle Teixeira]

I have been experiencing slow loading miments with Macbook pro 13" M1 vs my 2016 mbp intel. Also. Google drive file stream doesnt work on Apple Silicon yet 

[mourads85511428]

I bought MBP M1, illustrator is crushing all the time. Who to blame ?

[Letmefly]

Did you run the latest version of illustrator?

[mourads17253926]

yes, I did and still have the same issues

[jacquesr3733584]

I read on another post here in the Adobe Community that somebody suggested to turn off the iCloud.

My iCloud Drive is turned off. Maybe you can try this.