Articulate, Parallels and new (future) Macs
Jun 24, 2020
It's been a long time since I've visited this forum but I thought I'd drop by out of curiosity given Apple's announcement earlier this week. For those that missed it - over the next two years they are moving their Mac line up from Intel chips to their own Arm powered 'Apple silicon' chips.
One of the side effects of this is that on Arm powered Macs it won't be possible to run Windows in a VM like Parallels or VMWare.
I know there are many active members here who are Mac users running Storyline in a VM, and I'm curious about what impact this change will have. Intel Macs will still be made for some time and Macs tend to last well, so if you have a reasonably new Mac this decision may be four or five years away, but... assuming that there is no Mac version of Storyline and new Macs won't run Windows in a VM, which would you give up?
I suppose there is also the question of whether slide based learning content will still be relevant then or whether we will have fully switched to a responsive approach a la Rise.
I'd be really interested to hear from any current Storyline on Mac users.
2 Replies
I just submitted a support case for this. It's beyond time for Articulate to develop a native version of Storyline for Mac. Apple has already demonstrated their commitment to their own Pro Apps, like Final Cut Pro, running natively on ARM.
I – and likely my organization – will give up Storyline if it comes down to that decision.
Thanks for the response Daniel.
I should say that I'm not making any judgements here about what anyone or any company should do - these are commercial decisions that only they can make.
I'm interested in this because I think Intel based Macs were instrumental in driving growth in Mac market share (as well as the halo effect of iPhone and iPad). When they made that switch I think it was critical that Bootcamp was built in because so many people relied on Windows apps. For mainstream consumers I don't think that's true any more - but there are niches (and we elearning folk are one of them) where there is at least one Windows app that is so central to established workflows that it's almost impossible to imagine not using it. In other non-elearning forums I've seen people coming firmly down on both sides - (a) I need app X so I'll switch to Windows or (b) my Mac is more important to me so I'll find an alternative to app X.
I'll put my cards on the table - I was a long time Mac user (12 years) but last year I switched fully to Windows 10 and so far haven't regretted it. But, I am tempted to switch back once ARM based Macs are properly established (so a couple of years), but that does inform some of the decisions I make now. I only have one client that still uses Storyline, so I'm weighing up whether or not to renew my subscription.
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