Apple moved to its own ARM-based desktop processors for Mac computers in 2020. Believe it or not, even though it’s now 2022, not all macOS apps are optimized for Apple Silicon. Although the Mac M1 and M2 computers are also compatible with Intel applications, the software won’t work as well – developers really need to embrace the future of Apple Silicon.
Fortunately, after a long wait, one of the world’s most popular open source image editors, GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program), has ultimately been optimized for Apple Silicon. Yes, a stable M1/M2 version of the excellent (and free) Adobe Photoshop alternative can now be downloaded for macOS.
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“It’s a bit of an early Christmas for users of Apple Silicon machines (Apple M1, M2…) as we are releasing a stable version of GIMP for this architecture for the first time! This is a revision for GIMP 2.10.32, already released a few months ago, rebuilt with our new MacPorts-based infrastructure on both x86_64 (‘macOS on Intel’ architecture) and AArch64 (‘macOS on Apple Silicon’)”, explains Jehan Pagès, GIMP developer.
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Pagès adds: “Additionally, in this revised package, the dependencies have been updated, in particular babl and GEGL. This means that even for macOS on Intel, you will get the recent fix for the race condition bug which sometimes caused GIMP crashes (sort of we’ve mostly seen it on macOS), so we recommend anyone on macOS (regardless of your hardware) to update GIMP to this GIMP 2.10.32 Revision 1. “
The Apple Silicon variant of GIMP 2.10.32 can be downloaded directly from the developer here. Just install the DMG and you’re off to the races. If you decide to give it a try on your M1 or M2 based Mac computer, please share your experience with us in the comments below.
