Macs Now Issuing Warnings About 32-Bit Apps: What You Need to Know

Apple is moving from 32-bit Mac applications, and also wants its developers.

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This week's tech giant will begin to warn Mac users that 32-bit applications are undesirable. It is part of a global movement to eliminate 32-bit application support from the operating system at some indeterminate point in the future.

When you download macOS 10.13.4 and open a 32-bit application, you will receive a notification that the software is "not optimized" for Mac. The information will be displayed only once and will not include any mention of when Apple will do Exactly the same with the support of the 32-bit application of your operating system, according to Computerworld.

Apple has made it clear for years that its future will fit directly into the 64-bit realm. The company has stopped accepting any new application that uses 32-bit technology in its Mac App Store. But for those who have used Mac for years, download software from outside the Mac App Store, or maybe have created their own applications, there is a possibility that at least some of the programs on their computers run in 32 bits. [19659004] To be clear, this is just a warning and does not necessarily mean that anything will change in your computing experience. As Apple says on a support page, "you can continue using 32-bit applications with your Mac. Using 32-bit software has no adverse effects on your data or your computer."

Apple apparently hopes that with a warning its users, will ask developers to know that they have 32-bit applications running on the Mac to update them and offer 64-bit integration. It is also worth noting that 32-bit applications will continue to work at least in the next version of macOS that the company will present this year, macOS 10.14.

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That said, Apple's move to alert users is another step towards the point where it eliminates support for 32-bit applications. The same support page linked to above indicates that "eventually all future Mac software will be required to be 64 bits". And until then, there is a chance that 32-bit applications will not work as well as their 64-bit counterparts, since Apple optimizes the updates of its operating system for 64-bit processing.

If you're worried about all this and want to know exactly what applications you're running now offers 64-bit support, the folks at AppleMust have created a practical guide to discover. The steps, which will take some time, require you to enter the System Report panel and see if the applications support 64 bits. The list might surprise you.

For now, you can be sure that your Mac will continue running all those applications. Apple still has to announce a timeline to eliminate 32-bit application support, but with Worldwide Developers Conference just around the corner, the company could make an announcement soon.

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