Squarely in the ‘better late than never’ camp, Microsoft is finally bringing native Apple Silicon support to Teams.
Teams is a core part of Microsoft 365 and competes with Slack in the corporate messaging space. Despite its popularity, passing 270 million users in January 2022, the app has not had native Apple Silicon support. Instead, for the past two years, Mac users have had to rely on Apple’s Rosetta 2 translation layer to run the app. While Rosetta 2 is an amazingly competent piece of software, a native version often offers better performance and efficiency.
Microsoft has finally started rolling out native support for Apple’s chips, as announced in a company blog post:
We are rolling out a production grade universal binary version of Teams, which means it will run natively on the entire Mac lineup, including those with Apple silicon. For Mac users, this means a significant boost in performance, ensuring efficient use of device resources and an optimized Teams experience even when using multiple high-resolution monitors during calls or meetings.
The company reaffirmed its commitment to the Mac platform — a source of near-constant worry and speculation among Mac users — and said the update will roll out incrementally in the coming weeks:
Microsoft is committed to innovation and committed to the Mac, so we’re excited to bring this to our Mac users. The generally available (GA) version of the native Teams app on Mac with Apple silicon is being rolled out to customers in increments over the coming weeks. As soon as the rollout is finished, everyone will be automatically upgraded with their most recent update to Teams, so there isn’t a need to search for download links and manually install Teams. If you wish to speed this up, you can opt-in for Microsoft Teams Preview Program, which will give you faster updates and early access to new features, including Apple M1, where it’s guaranteed for everyone already.
