I believe that waiting a while will be rewarded significantly in terms of hardware that really meets your needs, less “issues” with MacOS, and ARM-native applications.Adobe has also released some pretty incendiary data that shows the performance of Creative Cloud apps is significantly better on the M1 chip - an average 83 performance uplift rising to a whopping 88 percent in Photoshop.Īnd if you're thinking this might only reflect a few key features like content-aware fill, you'd be wrong - expert Andreas Pfeiffer undertook 774 benchmark measures across the software suite and published a report showing all the results.ĪI features using Adobe's Sensei machine-learning tech saw around a 4-6 times uplift in performance.

Rumors are that more heavy duty configurations of the Mx-based MacBook Pro with larger screens, more memory, and larger SSDs are on the horizon. I think that most InDesign users and especially those users who are simultaneously running multiple applications (such as Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat in addition to InDesign, not to mention some type of mail client and browsers) would recommend at least 32GB of memory. Insufficient Memory – These initial models support only 8GB and 16GB versions of the M1 chip and this memory is shared between a number of components on the M1 chip. You would definitely need an external screen for either of these 13.x' systems to be at all usable. Even a 15' or 16' Intel-based MacBook Pro is cutting it close. The MacBook Pro has a 13' screen, neither of which are reasonable for the type of work you are planning. Small screens – The MacBook Air has a 13.3' screen. Beyond resolving both operating system and application problems (and synchronization of same), the current M1 chip-based computers have two severe limitations that are fairly problematic for serious graphic arts production: That having been said, I personally believe that unless you are primarily looking for bragging rights about having “the latest and greatest” new toy from Cupertino, it might be prudent to wait a while until at least the next round of models are unleashed by Apple. No date has been announced yet for such releases. Adobe is actively working to make versions of all current applications that are native to the ARM processor which is part of Apple's M1 and future “computer on a chip” systems.

Indesign m1