Microsoft will soon begin rolling out a version of Teams tailored for Macs using Apple silicon to use less CPU power and improve the performance of the collaboration software.
Microsoft plans to release Teams for Apple’s custom-designed ARM processors in the coming months. The kits, originally programmed for Intel-based Macs, will perform better and be less taxing on system resources than the current version, Microsoft said this week.
However, Intel Mac users won’t be left out. The new software uses Apple’s universal binary format to run natively on Intel and Apple silicon computers.
Competitors Zoom and Cisco Webex teams already support Apple’s chips.
Workers and businesses have increasingly adopted Macs in recent years. Nearly a quarter of US business PCs were Macs in 2021, up from 17% in 2019, according to research firm IDC.
Many workers want the option to use a Mac. Of 1,163 American workers surveyed this year by the analytics firm Creative Strategies, 60 percent wanted their companies to support Apple computers.
Microsoft will release a Teams desktop app built for Mac on Apple silicon.
Beyond their growing numbers, business Mac users are more likely to be performance-sensitive than the typical office worker, said Tom Arbuthnot, founder of Teams training company Empowering.Cloud. Many Apple employees use their machines for processing-intensive tasks, such as image or video editing, and do not want a collaboration tool to take up system resources.
“[Macs] they are not cheap products, therefore [users] Look for good performance,” Arbuthnot said. “There’s certainly feedback from the Mac community that [Teams’] performance could be better, hence the pent-up demand for it [update].”
Microsoft needed to update Teams to improve performance, said Technalysis Research analyst Bob O’Donnell. Video conferencing apps are already system drains, as they use a device’s camera and microphone and load the CPU with noise cancellation and custom background features. Without a native app, Apple’s silicon machines had to rely on emulation to run Teams, adding to the strain.
“The whole beauty of the ARM stuff that Apple is doing is that it tends to be power efficient,” O’Donnell said. “But you only get the most out of it… if you do [program] therefore in a native way”.
Apple users have been asking for a Teams app for Apple silicon for a long time. A request for this app on Microsoft’s customer feedback forum received 3,216 upvotes, with users complaining about the current version’s high CPU usage and slowness. Several pointed to the long delay between Apple’s silicon introduction and Microsoft’s updated app.
Apple began switching from Intel processors to chips of its design two years ago, with the intention of eventually running all Macs on Apple silicon. Since then, the Intel-based computers in the company’s line have evolved into the Mac Pro and specific models of the Mac mini. This summer, Apple introduced laptops based on the second generation of its custom processors, the M2.
Mike Gleason is a reporter covering unified communications and collaboration tools. Previously, he covered communities in the MetroWest region of Massachusetts for the Milford Daily News, Walpole Times, Sharon Advocate and Medfield Press. He has also worked for newspapers in central Massachusetts and southwestern Vermont and has been the local editor for Patch. He can be found on Twitter at @MGleason_TT.