Big Sur and M1 Macs

Tagged: 

Viewing 17 reply threads
  • Author
    Posts
  • November 17, 2020 at 8:21 AM #42633

    Victor Warner
    Participant

    Is Tap Forms 5.3.14 compatible with Big Sur?

    And will there be a native version for the new Macs (M1)?

    November 17, 2020 at 6:23 PM #42638

    Brendan
    Keymaster

    Hi Victor,

    I am working on a native M1 version, but I have to remove some third-party library dependencies first from it. It’s going to be a bunch of months before I have an M1 release ready.

    But the current Tap Forms 5 does work under Rosetta 2 emulation right now. It works quite well. I do have a Big Sur compatibility update coming shortly. It’s just to correct some cosmetic issues with the Preferences window. Right now when you click on a button on the Preferences window, the button hides. It’s still there and it still works. It’s just invisible until you close and re-open the Preferences panel again.

    Thanks,

    Brendan

    November 19, 2020 at 11:31 AM #42643

    Victor Warner
    Participant

    Brendan,

    Thank you for the information.

    I have an M1 MBA – and under Rosetta 2 Tap Forms works faster than (based on limited testing) then an 2017 iMac with SSD disk and 48.00 GB RAM. For example,

    1. the main database I have in Tap Forms is 7GB, and always takes a while to load and the window for the database is half formed while loading; and
    2. to open a new (second) window for this database and some times causes the beach ball to appear together with a delay

    Neither happen on the M1 MBA (in limited testing).

    November 19, 2020 at 11:43 AM #42644

    Daniel Leu
    Participant

    Thank you for your feedback, Victor. This confirms that the M1 chip is really fast. And this is a chip entry level systems, if we can all them that way.

    November 19, 2020 at 9:34 PM #42645

    Sam Moffatt
    Participant

    Well it’s more than just the M1, you’ve got to account that the storage on the MBA is likely an order of magnitude faster than the 2017 iMac. That certainly helps as well because generally the beachball is I/O related and on a machine with 48GB of RAM it’s unlikely to be I/O from memory contention. There is obviously a bunch of optimisation work on those pathways as well.

    I’m looking forward to a 15″/16″ MBP with Apple Silicon and mildly curious what other hardware they’ll come up with for the iMac and Mac Pro.

    November 20, 2020 at 2:13 AM #42651

    Brendan
    Keymaster

    That’s great to hear! I’m really looking forward to getting one. I’m holding out for a MBP 16″ though.

    November 26, 2020 at 5:52 AM #42729

    Victor Warner
    Participant

    Another report on the performance under the M1 MBA:

    The biggest database I use in Tap Forms is about 7.2 gigabytes. To backup it takes

    1. on the iMac about 7 minutes 30 seconds
    2. on the M1 MBA about 6 minutes 20 seconds

    So at present not much difference. Not complaining just noting…

    November 26, 2020 at 12:48 PM #42732

    Brendan
    Keymaster

    It’s great to see there’s no performance penalty with Rosetta 2. It’s amazing what they’ve managed to accomplish with that.

    August 5, 2021 at 2:26 PM #44922

    John Whittington
    Participant

    Hola Brendan from Brisbane, Australia.
    I have just got my M1 iMac ? and successfully migrated TF to it.
    TF runs very well under Rosetta but there seems to be a bug in syncing to iCloud and with my iPhone and iPad. ( the latter sync fine with each other)
    Any update on the native M1 TF ETA?

    August 6, 2021 at 9:33 AM #44924

    Sam Moffatt
    Participant

    Basic question: have you tried signing out of iCloud sync and back in again?

    August 6, 2021 at 8:10 PM #44931

    John Whittington
    Participant

    Many times! Microsoft taught us a long time ago about rebooting etc.

    NEAR ME sync is fine, but not that useful for me.have even tried only doing one database file at a time. Still becomes unresponsive.

    August 8, 2021 at 8:32 PM #44935

    John Whittington
    Participant

    SOLVED IT!

    I identified two problems:
    Firstly, do not try to initiate cloud sync on three databases at once. The sync gets tangled up and only succeeds in creating damaged copies.
    Secondly, transferring the Tap Forms software and databases from Time machine backups to the new computer [M1 iMac] gets it lost on where the databases are stored in the new directory structure of the M1.

    now I’m happy again.

    August 23, 2021 at 11:15 AM #45026

    Gail Ehrlich
    Participant

    Hi,
    I am purchasing an iPad Pro – 11″ which has the M1 chip. Does TapForm 5 work with it? I have an older iMac – which currently has High Sierra 10.13.6 OS. Will I be able to sync the information between these 2 machines?
    Thanks,
    Gail

    August 23, 2021 at 3:02 PM #45027

    John Whittington
    Participant

    Hi Gail,

    I am finding Near Me syncing is working just fine. I have stopped trying to get iCloud sync working [between an M1 iMac, an iPad and an iPhone] until Brendan produces the M1 native version of TapForms. Whilst TapForms runs excellently under Rosetta on the M1 iMac, I kept getting corrupt syncs between the iMac and the iOS devices.
    Hope this helps.

    Cheers

    juanenBrisbane

    August 26, 2021 at 2:49 PM #45096

    Brendan
    Keymaster

    Hi Gail,

    Yes, Tap Forms 5 for iOS should work just fine on the M1 iPad. It’s an ARM chip after all and all iOS apps work on ARM processors. I haven’t heard of anyone having any troubles so far.

    John, I don’t think the sync issues had to do with the M1 chip though. When sync happens, that’s all done using data transfer, so doesn’t have anything to do with the CPU used.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 8 months ago by Brendan.
    August 26, 2021 at 3:12 PM #45100

    John Whittington
    Participant

    Thanks, Brendan,

    I see it as an Apple quirk of the new machine.

    I will try again once iOS15 and MacOS12(?) are released in the Spring [Australia, remember]

    cheers

    juanenBrisbane

    October 14, 2021 at 1:48 PM #45483

    macALpine
    Participant

    Is Tap Form compatible with Monterey? I could live without Monterey, but I could never live without Tap Forms! 😀 It’s the most useful software on my machine that isn’t from Apple. (I have an Intel MacBook Air 2020.)

    I sync with my iPad and iPhone, which are on iOS 15.

    Allen

    October 15, 2021 at 1:08 AM #45487

    Brendan
    Keymaster

    Hi Allen,

    Yes Tap Forms 5 does work on Monterey. I’ve been testing it with all the betas.

    THanks,

    Brendan

Viewing 17 reply threads

You must be logged in to reply to this topic.