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Adobe releases limited beta of Premiere Pro for Apple Silicon M1

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Adobe announces that video editing app Premiere Pro is to be released with Apple Silicon M1 support in stages, starting with the "core editing functions," which are available in beta now.

Final Cut Pro rival Adobe Premiere Pro is now available with support for the M1 processor, but only partially and solely in beta. Adobe warns users that there are key limitations in the current beta, but also says that full support will be introduced in stages.

"Since Premiere Pro is built on a large codebase with support for a wide range of media and workflows, we will implement native support for Apple M1 in phases and some parts have not been ported yet," Adobe announced in a blog post.

"This phased approach allows us to validate performance and functionality for specific parts of the application before we add new components," it continues. "And it also allows you to start seeing the benefits now."

The blog post includes a list of specific issues such as how dragging markers "can cause a flicker in the Program Monitor." And it cautions that third party integrations "such as panels, plugins, effects and drivers" will have to be updated by those developers.

In general, Adobe's guidance is that because the beta requires project file formats to be updated, users should test out the app only on copies of production work. Adobe also says that for now, elements such as After Effects do not have M1 support, and so will run under Rosetta 2 emulation.

"[This] first public Beta includes all the core editing functions and workflows like color, graphics, and audio, as well as features like Productions, and multicam," says Adobe. "We prioritized support for the most widely used codecs, like H.264, HEVC, and ProRes."

"The average editor is likely to see very little difference from the Intel version," it continues.

This partial beta of Premiere Pro follows Adobe's release of a beta for Photoshop on M1, and a full release of Lightroom. Other Adobe apps, including Illustrator, are expected in early 2021.

Two of those have now also joined Photoshop and Premiere Pro in beta. Adobe has announced that its audio editing app Audition, and its social media video editor Premiere Rush, now support Apple Silicon M1.

Both are in beta, and neither is complete. Premiere Rush beta for M1 lacks some exporting to social media functions, for instance. Audition "does not yet have support for video playback, extension panels, or some third-party formats and integrations.

Updated 12:40 PM Eastern Time: added announcement of Adobe Audition and Premiere Rush betas with M1 support.



5 Comments

melgross 20 Years · 33622 comments

This all reminds me of the 68000 to PPC transition more than any other. I had the Quadra 950 at the time, believed to be the most powerful personal computer at the time. Back them Apple’s computers had a “processor slot”. It hidden dveen used for anything. But when the PPC 601 came out, Apple, in a move to get them in service as quickly as possible, sold a 601 board that fitted.

I bought one. Quickly, WordPerfect came out with a native version. Adobe released photoshop 2.51 that had filter support, and a lot of software followed, including some new, innovative stuff that couldn’t be done otherwise, such as live filters for PS.

it was three times faster, in my own testing. That was amazing, and had hype (deserved) that was similar to what we’re seeing for the M1, also deserved.

software came quickly because this wasn’t an incremental improvement, but a paradigm changing performance difference. The same thing now. And software is arriving quickly now too.

SpamSandwich 19 Years · 32917 comments

melgross said:
This all reminds me of the 68000 to PPC transition more than any other. I had the Quadra 950 at the time, believed to be the most powerful personal computer at the time. Back them Apple’s computers had a “processor slot”. It hidden dveen used for anything. But when the PPC 601 came out, Apple, in a move to get them in service as quickly as possible, sold a 601 board that fitted.

I bought one. Quickly, WordPerfect came out with a native version. Adobe released photoshop 2.51 that had filter support, and a lot of software followed, including some new, innovative stuff that couldn’t be done otherwise, such as live filters for PS.

it was three times faster, in my own testing. That was amazing, and had hype (deserved) that was similar to what we’re seeing for the M1, also deserved.

software came quickly because this wasn’t an incremental improvement, but a paradigm changing performance difference. The same thing now. And software is arriving quickly now too.

I was a Quadra 840AV owner. Thanks for reminding me what a great computer that was.

melgross 20 Years · 33622 comments

melgross said:
This all reminds me of the 68000 to PPC transition more than any other. I had the Quadra 950 at the time, believed to be the most powerful personal computer at the time. Back them Apple’s computers had a “processor slot”. It hidden dveen used for anything. But when the PPC 601 came out, Apple, in a move to get them in service as quickly as possible, sold a 601 board that fitted.

I bought one. Quickly, WordPerfect came out with a native version. Adobe released photoshop 2.51 that had filter support, and a lot of software followed, including some new, innovative stuff that couldn’t be done otherwise, such as live filters for PS.

it was three times faster, in my own testing. That was amazing, and had hype (deserved) that was similar to what we’re seeing for the M1, also deserved.

software came quickly because this wasn’t an incremental improvement, but a paradigm changing performance difference. The same thing now. And software is arriving quickly now too.
I was a Quadra 840AV owner. Thanks for reminding me what a great computer that was.

Those were the good, exciting days. Generally, computing had gotten a lot less exciting over the years as everything seemed to settle in. The last exciting time was when Apple moved to x86 in 2006. After that, everything exciting involved the iPhone and iPad, then the watch, but not what most people think of as “computers”. The M1 has given the industry some excitement once again. It’s been a long time.

mcdave 19 Years · 1927 comments

Clever move by Apple as the performance gains of ASi will only be available to developers who concede 3rd-party, cross-platform code to Apple’s own frameworks/APIs. Let’s see if Adobe genuinely embraces these.

fastasleep 14 Years · 6451 comments

 ... elements such as After Effects ...

After Effects is its own application, it's not a feature of Premiere.