I see this in the release notes:
macOS: Added support for native Apple silicon and macOS Universal 2 builds.
Is that just in builds / the Unity Player, or is the editor itself a native M1 or Universal app?
I see this in the release notes:
macOS: Added support for native Apple silicon and macOS Universal 2 builds.
Is that just in builds / the Unity Player, or is the editor itself a native M1 or Universal app?
Where is Unity with Apple Silicon M1 for macOS Player?
And to answer the original question: no, the editor does not run natively yet. But we are working on it.
Does it mean that we might expect it on iPad OS at some point in the future?
That is something else entirely. They would have to rewrite the entire UI, add a code editor or something and much more. Plus, I don’t even know Apple fully allows compiling code on iPadOS.
Rumors says that iOS 14.2 starts to allow JIT compilation (quietly). The article below claimed that JIT is only for side-loaded apps, but given that no apps on App Stores have ever used JIT because previous iOS simply couldn’t, it only remains for Apple to approve JIT apps to be published on App Store.
What this means is that potentially Unity could compile your C# scripts into an JIT assembly and load it on iOS. (like any other editor platform). But even if this is resolved, they still need to resolve their third-party dependencies, since iOS ABI is different from macOS ABI so even if those dependencies are recompile for ARM, they would not automatically work on iOS. And Unity still needs to build UI for touch controls, etc.
But here’s the thing: with Mac products moving to ARM chips, and iOS apps running natively on macOS Big Sur, the boundaries have been blurred significantly. iPad, being a more portable form-factor, would likely never be as powerful as the latest Macs. If you need Unity to work on iPad, you might as well buy a Mac.
Do you have a potential ETA on when this would land, or a comparison of how Unity runs through Rosetta 2 possibly?
We haven’t received new hardware unfortunately so I can’t comment on performance yet.
Native editor is a huge task that we’ve been working on for several months and will be working on it through the next year. I wouldn’t expect it sooner than second half of next year.
It runs smooth like native through Rosetta translation, see for yourself : Youtube Link
A native editor is one thing, but what about our games? When is native game compilation for M1 expected?
Apple Silicon suppport is already available. We’re using it on Unity 2020.2, but I think it’s also on 2020.1.
It’s been added in 2020.2 alpha. You can download latest Unity 2020.2 and build your game for it. Note there are some issues, discussed here: https://discussions.unity.com/t/799639
Nice.
Thank you Tautvydas.
Does UnityPurchasing work as well?
Marek.
I did not try it. It might have to be updated if it uses precompiled native plugins, I’ll ask.
IAP team said that they plan ship an update to the IAP package this month with support for Apple silicon player builds.
Thanks.
Looks like an IAP package update was published today (version 2.2.2) that includes native Apple silicon player support.
Is there any chance that porting the editor to ARM for Apple Silicon support will result in support for Linux or Android ARM devices? I’d love to see the Unity Editor on some theoretical future Raspberry Pi 5 device.
No.