iMatch on Apple m1?

[Carlo Didier]

I got asked by a friend who is looking to buy one of the new Macs with the m1 processor whether my DAM (i.e. iMatch) would run on those.
From this forum, I know it can be run on the Intel based Macs (I don't have any Macs myself), but is that still possible for the new m1 processors?
Has anyone tried that yet?

[Mario]

The new Macs don't support any Intel software. And there are currently no emulators, virtualization solutions or similar.
Due to the non-Intel architecture there is also no Parallels to install Windows side-by-side.
You lock yourself into the Apple world entirely with this new processor. And least for a while.

IMatch Anywhere WebViewer runs, because it runs in a web browser. Since I don't have Apple hardware I cannot test it in Safari. And Apple's Safari is the browser with the most "issues" currently.
Not sure if one can install non-Safari browsers on Macs. Apple forbids it on iPhones, though.

[dadu]

Hi Mario,
I see that Parallels 17 has just been released and is supported on M1 processors. Any idea if IMatch will work okay in a virtual Parallels environment on a M1 Mac Mini?

https://www.parallels.com/blogs/parallels-desktop-17/

[herman]

[...]
Any idea if IMatch will work okay in a virtual Parallels environment on a M1 Mac Mini?

I am not Mario, but as I recently bought an M1 MacBook myself I have looked into this as well.
As far as I can tell the bottleneck is that IMatch requires AVX support by the processor.

Parallels uses a Windows 10 ARM virtual environment.
ARM processors do not support AVX.

So the answer is most likely no.

[Mario]

That's sad. They could support this in software, surely. AVX is a technology a decade (!) old. Basically, just a bunch of instructions to make calculations faster.

[brunopetit17]

I have an M1 Mac and tried installing imatch in Parallels Desktop running Windows 11 ARM version. Windows 11 runs perfectly well and Parallels itself runs perfectly on M1 Macs. But unfortunately even though I could install imatch, it just won't run. I guess that's because AVX is not supported. I wrote in their forums asking for support for it.
I also tried running imatch with crossover, which also runs well on M1 Macs. But here again imatch could install but not run, I guess because of the same issue.

That's sad because I was ready to pay for both Parallels (or crossover) and imatch to get a good DAM, as I find other options available on Mac lack features a lot. The reason I use a M1 Mac is because photography editing softwares like Lightroom works so much better than on my previous windows laptops. The M1/M2 really make a huge difference in performance and battery life, enabling photographers to work faster anywhere, while travelling or commuting. I switched to Mac for that reason, but then while looking for a good DAM I realised the best rated one, imatch, sadly only has a windows version...

Is there any version of imatch that works without AVX?
Or do you think imatch could ever release a Mac version? I bet tons of people would be ready to pay for a Mac version. A lot of photographers and content creators have switched to Mac since the release of the new M1 and M2 chips.

[Mario]

Is there any version of imatch that works without AVX?

No, sorry.

I think the problem with Parallels or other Hypervisors on the M1/M2 processors is that these processors don't support Advanced Vector instructions (AVX) and Parallels cannot virtualize them for that reason.

VirtualBox does AVX and even DirectX and there is now a preview version which runs on the M1/M2 proprietary processors:

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Maybe try that?

Or do you think imatch could ever release a Mac version? I bet tons of people would be ready to pay for a Mac version. A lot of photographers and content creators have switched to Mac since the release of the new M1 and M2 chips.

That is impossible, sorry.
Developing software for the Mac is expensive, laborious and you are always at the whim of Apple and hope they don't block you or something. Or force you to upgrade your entire tech stack and rewrite working things every two years for reasons.

It would require me to rewrite IMatch from the ground up - which would take a loooong time and cost looooots of money.

When I would do such a thing, I would rather base it on IMatch Anywhere^TM technology, with IMatch Anywhere running as a server on Windows, Linux, Mac and the IMatch front end running in any web browser and on any platform.