If you have (or are considering buying) a new Mac with Apple’s custom M1 ARM-based silicon, then we have some news for you. Microsoft has finally delivered on its promise and announced that the Canary version of its Edge browser now natively supports Mac ARM64 devices.
You asked, and we delivered! ???? Native support for Mac ARM64 devices is now available in our Canary channel. Download it today from our Microsoft Edge Insiders website! https://t.co/qJMMGV0HjU
— Microsoft Edge Dev (@MSEdgeDev) December 16, 2020
Much like when the Microsoft 365 apps picked up support for the M1 Macs, this means that Edge Canary should now perform better on the new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini. Edge Canary will longer run under emulation on these devices. Instead of depending on Rosetta 2, it now is powered with native code, optimized for the Apple M1 silicon.
Microsoft says you can download this version of Edge directly from the Insider website. However, please be warned that Canary builds are known to be unstable. You might have a lot of bugs and other issues if you download this version and use it as your main browser.
It’s really great to see that Microsoft managed to work with Apple and optimize Edge for these new M1 Macs. It took the company several months to roll out similar native ARM64 support on Windows 10, so we’ll just have to wait and see when this rolls out to everyone with an M1 Mac, outside of the Edge Insider program.