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Forum Discussion
wwmiller3
5 years agoHelpful | Level 6
Dropbox Apple Silicon (M1) install
Hi,
I recently purchased a MacBook Pro 13" with the M1 processor and I cannot seem to get a native install of Dropbox for this chipset. From searching the community, it seems like M1 support sh...
- 4 years ago
Hi all,
Native Apple silicon support is now fully available. All users with Apple silicon devices will receive the native version of Dropbox automatically. If you would like to update your device manually, you can do so by clicking on the latest Stable Build and downloading the Offline Installer (Apple Silicon) file. For more information, visit the Dropbox Help Center.If you need assistance with anything else, please feel free to create a new thread and our community team will be happy to assist.
rmatec
5 years agoHelpful | Level 5
Surely you are aware than using Rosetta consumes a lot more CPU and memory and than translates to a slower Mac and less battery hours.
I don’t know you but for me that is a deal breaker which is the reason why I moved away from Dropbox.
I don’t know you but for me that is a deal breaker which is the reason why I moved away from Dropbox.
Michael B.10
5 years agoExperienced | Level 13
I am disappointed in the lack of communication but I would also say that it runs fine under Rosetta. I think there is a body of opinion who associate Rosetta with the PowerPC to Intel transition, and/or simply dislike the concept of translation. The actual experience for me on two M1 Macs is that I do not believe I could pass a blindfold test between Dropbox on Intel and Dropbox on Rosetta/M1.
- biketocamp5 years agoHelpful | Level 5
Seriously Dropbox team. You have had over a year to compile a native arm64 version of Dropbox. Is this a signal that macos support is ending for the product? It sure feels like it. Time to move on I guess.
- Wvp5 years agoHelpful | Level 6
Michael B.10 wrote:I am disappointed in the lack of communication but I would also say that it runs fine under Rosetta. I think there is a body of opinion who associate Rosetta with the PowerPC to Intel transition, and/or simply dislike the concept of translation. The actual experience for me on two M1 Macs is that I do not believe I could pass a blindfold test between Dropbox on Intel and Dropbox on Rosetta/M1.
I agree that Dropbox works without problems under Rosetta 2.
Rosetta 2 is provided by Apple as a transition tool, to give developers time to create universal applications, as Apple clearly states: "Rosetta is meant to ease the transition to Apple silicon, giving you time to create a universal binary for your app. It is not a substitute for creating a native version of your app."
At this moment many/ most developers have universal binaries or specific Apple Silicon versions for their apps. A company like Dropbox handling this as a feature request seems a bit strange to me, but we really do not know anything in that regard as Dropbox is (like Apple 😊 ) dead-silent on these matters until they are ready to release something.
- Doug T.5 years agoHelpful | Level 5
My experience with Rosetta apps is that they normally work just fine, but with a noticable lag in input, chew up cpu and battery/ram as well. A native experience is smoother and with less lag.
- jrwwallis5 years agoNew member | Level 2
What's really odd to me is that the dropbox installer is itself a universal binary, and runs fine as an Apple silicon binary:
But the resulting installed binary still runs in Intel mode:
I don't see the point in going to the trouble of creating a universal binary for the installer when the target app is still Intel mode only.
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