Photo Mechanic (Plus) and Apple M1

[elianoimperato]

Hello,

I read in an old thread that "Photo Mechanic 6 and Photo Mechanic Plus run very well on the M1 in emulation" and Camera Bits is "not currently working towards a native version but will do so in the future".
It's true, Photo Mechanic runs very well on my MacBook Air M1 but is always on the power panel under the entry 'Using Significant Energy'. So I hope you'll work on a native versions in a not too distant future.

Best,
Eliano

[Kirk Baker]

Eliano.

I read in an old thread that "Photo Mechanic 6 and Photo Mechanic Plus run very well on the M1 in emulation" and Camera Bits is "not currently working towards a native version but will do so in the future".
It's true, Photo Mechanic runs very well on my MacBook Air M1 but is always on the power panel under the entry 'Using Significant Energy'. So I hope you'll work on a native versions in a not too distant future.

A M1 native version won't use significantly less power.  With speed comes power usage.  We could make a slower version of our software that uses less energy, regardless of its native status.

-Kirk

[Boatguy]

Eliano.

I read in an old thread that "Photo Mechanic 6 and Photo Mechanic Plus run very well on the M1 in emulation" and Camera Bits is "not currently working towards a native version but will do so in the future".
It's true, Photo Mechanic runs very well on my MacBook Air M1 but is always on the power panel under the entry 'Using Significant Energy'. So I hope you'll work on a native versions in a not too distant future.

A M1 native version won't use significantly less power.  With speed comes power usage.  We could make a slower version of our software that uses less energy, regardless of its native status.

-Kirk

That's a bit of an odd answer.  It could be interpreted as "we could make Photo Mechanic faster, but we don't want to because it will use more power."  Is that what's behind the decision to not make a native version?

If that's the case, let's see a show of hands for everyone who wants PM to be slower so that it will conserve more power.

Hello?  Anyone?  Bueller?

[Kirk Baker]

Eliano.

I read in an old thread that "Photo Mechanic 6 and Photo Mechanic Plus run very well on the M1 in emulation" and Camera Bits is "not currently working towards a native version but will do so in the future".
It's true, Photo Mechanic runs very well on my MacBook Air M1 but is always on the power panel under the entry 'Using Significant Energy'. So I hope you'll work on a native versions in a not too distant future.

A M1 native version won't use significantly less power.  With speed comes power usage.  We could make a slower version of our software that uses less energy, regardless of its native status.

-Kirk

That's a bit of an odd answer.  It could be interpreted as "we could make Photo Mechanic faster, but we don't want to because it will use more power."  Is that what's behind the decision to not make a native version?

That's an odd take on what I said.  I'll try to explain more:

The Rosetta2 emulator converts a non-native application into native code as it runs.  This process doesn't take long, and once it does, the code is essentially "M1-native".  It doesn't use any extra power once this process is complete.  The only thing we can do to reduce power consumption (remember, the original post on this thread was complaining about this), even with a M1-native version of our apps to reduce their power consumption is to put limits on how much power they can use, which would slow down the responsiveness of the application.

Making a M1-native version of Photo Mechanic 6 and Photo Mechanic Plus, in their current state is not a worthwhile effort.  The next major version of Photo Mechanic and Photo Mechanic Plus will be M1-native.

-Kirk

[aleck]

Making a M1-native version of Photo Mechanic 6 and Photo Mechanic Plus, in their current state is not a worthwhile effort.  The next major version of Photo Mechanic and Photo Mechanic Plus will be M1-native.

Based on how much better DxO PhotoLab 5 behaves on Intel vs how PhotoLab 5 behaves on M1, I have to believe there's quite a bit of improvement possible by rewriting for M1 architecture.

Or the inverse, how much better DaVinci Resolve performs on M1 vs DaVinci Resolve on Intel. There's a lot of scope for better performance with less energy or less hogging of resources. When Rosetta 2 is running on a substantial media app, everything is a bit clunkier.

Adobe Lightroom and Premiere performance really improved under M1 native version. If inefficient Adobe can improve performance with a native M1 version, I'm sure CameraBits can do so as well.

[Kirk Baker]

Aleck,

Making a M1-native version of Photo Mechanic 6 and Photo Mechanic Plus, in their current state is not a worthwhile effort.  The next major version of Photo Mechanic and Photo Mechanic Plus will be M1-native.

Based on how much better DxO PhotoLab 5 behaves on Intel vs how PhotoLab 5 behaves on M1, I have to believe there's quite a bit of improvement possible by rewriting for M1 architecture.

Or the inverse, how much better DaVinci Resolve performs on M1 vs DaVinci Resolve on Intel. There's a lot of scope for better performance with less energy or less hogging of resources. When Rosetta 2 is running on a substantial media app, everything is a bit clunkier.

Adobe Lightroom and Premiere performance really improved under M1 native version. If inefficient Adobe can improve performance with a native M1 version, I'm sure Camera Bits can do so as well.

It most certainly will improve in some areas, but the great majority of operations in PM are limited by disk I/O speed.  It is unlikely that a native M1 app will eke out significantly more disk performance than an emulated (dynamically recompiled by Rosetta2) one.

The next major version of Photo Mechanic and Photo Mechanic Plus will be M1-native.

-Kirk

[toadhall_manager]

Summary from Photo Mechanic staff:
- "A M1 native version won't use significantly less power"
- "The Rosetta2 emulator converts a non-native application into native code as it runs.  This process doesn't take long, and once it does, the code is essentially "M1-native"
- "... the great majority of operations in PM are limited by disk I/O speed". 
- "It is unlikely that a native M1 app will eke out significantly more disk performance than an emulated (dynamically recompiled by Rosetta2) one."
- "The next major version of Photo Mechanic and Photo Mechanic Plus will be M1-native."
- From webpage https://home.camerabits.com/2021/11/09/photo-mechanic-and-apple-silicon-m1-compatibility: "much of the Apple Silicon speed improvements will already be apparent under emulation with the current versions of Photo Mechanic [PM6]"

From the above, can we conclude:
-M1 version of Photo Mechanic is not needed for PM6?
- Given that the next major version of PM will be Apple silicon native and that PM6 in emulation runs well according to Camera bits staff comments: Apple silicon native version is not a major reason to upgrade to PM7?

[ahoward]

-M1 version of Photo Mechanic is not needed for PM6?

Photo Mechanic 6 has been running on Apple's processors under Rosetta 2 emulation for more than a year with results similar or better than machines running intel processors. If you are encountering a specific issue, please let us know about it.

- Given that the next major version of PM will be Apple silicon native and that PM6 in emulation runs well according to Camera bits staff comments: Apple silicon native version is not a major reason to upgrade to PM7?

We can't decide that for you. When we release a new version of Photo Mechanic, you'll be able to evaluate the features and decide if it is worth it to you to upgrade.

With that said, if history is any indication (see Rosetta 1, support for 32-bit applications, etc.), Apple will undoubtedly sunset Rosetta 2 in a future version of MacOS, at which point you can continue using a version of MacOS that contains Rosetta 2, or upgrade to whatever the current version of Photo Mechanic is at that time.

[stefsegers]

We are another year away since the first blog post about PM getting a Native M1 version.
Is there any roadmap? We love to be included and like to know how everything is going on with this major update?

[Kirk Baker]

We are another year away since the first blog post about PM getting a Native M1 version.
Is there any roadmap? We love to be included and like to know how everything is going on with this major update?

PM7 will be M1 native.  We don't have a release date for you at this time, but we're working on the new version while we continue to support PM6.

-Kirk