The M1 Mac’s inability to run Windows might seems like an obvious limitation, but it’s actually a major issue for a lot of Mac users. Boot Camp is gone so you can’t run Windows natively, which means you need to use a virtualization app. A few months ago, Parallels previewed its Parallels Desktop for Mac virtualization software on M1 Macs, and on Wednesday, the company annnounced that Parallels Desktop 16.5 for Mac—which brings full native support for both M1 and Intel Macs—is out of beta and now available to the general public.
If you want to run Windows on your M1 Mac, you can launch Parallels Desktop 16.5 to run the Windows 10 ARM Insider Preview, the only version of Windows that can run on Apple silicon. To get the Insider Preview, you need to register for Microsoft’s Insider Program. Keep in mind that this is beta, so some features may not work, and it isn’t optimized for performance.
Despite the lack of optimization on Microsoft’s part, Parallels claims that performance of Windows 10 ARM is 30 percent better on an M1 Mac than Windows on an Intel Core i9 MacBook Pro, and DirectX performance is 60 percent better compared to a MacBook Pro with a Radeon Pro 555X GPU. And the M1 Mac uses 2.5 less energy than a 2020 Intel MacBook Air, the company says.
The major features that were in the version 16 release are fully available on M1 Macs, including Coherence Mode, Mac keyboard layouts, Shared Profiles, Touch Bar controls, and more. Parallels says that it “hopes” to add the ability to run macOS Big Sur in a virtual machine later this year.
Parallels Desktop Business Edition allows you to run Windows and Mac applications side by side. Choose your view to make Windows invisible while still using its applications, or keep the familiar Windows background and controls on your Mac. Whether you need to run Windows programs that don’t have Mac versions, or you’re making the switch. Parallels Desktop for Mac 16.5 supports all the capabilities that that users of PDM are used to on Apple M1 systems, including coherence mode, shared profile, and touch bar controls, just to name.
Parallels Desktop Apple M1
Parallels Desktop 16.5 for Mac is $79.99 for a new subscription or $99.99 for a new perpetual license. An upgrade from Parallels Desktop 14 or 15 to a perpetual license is $49.99.
Apple M1 Parallels Desktop Download
With macOS Big Sur and the new Mac computers with Apple M1 chip becoming available, we will continue to do more extensive evaluations, both in our lab and with your help via the Parallels Technical Preview Program. When Apple Silicon Mac was first announced during the keynote at WWDC on June 22 of this year, Apple demoed a Parallels Desktop for Mac prototype running a Linux virtual machine flawlessly on.