VLC, the most popular media player for any platform, has finally been updated to be compatible with M1 Macs (download here), and it has, like many other applications, without changing anything aesthetically.
Thus, users who use it on their computer compared to the previous version, only native to Intel computers, will notice significant performance improvements when it comes to playing large files and bitrate. I have also seen on my MacBook Air M1 that the optimization is very good, and converting files has been almost twice as fast as the version for Intel.
The update is very good, but it again presents a problem that we have already seen with the updates to Apple silicon from Chrome and Microsoft Edge (although this has only arrived in beta version at the moment).
The problem of Universal 2
Applications for Apple silicon can be launched in two ways: as universal binaries, that is, containing Intel and ARM code from Apple silicon, or with Apple silicon code exclusively. Most developers choose to release the applications under the first model, such as Universal with native compatibility with any modern Mac.
However, this is a problem, because the code occupies a disk space that if we are not going to use it can be annoying on 256 GB computers (or 128 GB if we talk about receiving Universal updates on Intel computers, where we will not need the Apple silicon code). Therefore, instead of releasing a single download package, the developers of VLC, Chrome and Edge give you a choice about which option to download.
Under the current Apple model, a lot of disk space is wasted. Otherwise, it creates confusion when downloading
This, which is appreciated in the sense of saving storage, is a problem for all those users who do not know what they are talking about when Apple chip or Intel chip is mentioned. Also, in the case of VLC, for example, if I download the default option without looking for anything else, the application that arrives by default on my computer is the Intel version. I have to worry about looking for the Apple silicon version. Too much for one user.
Of course, it is appreciated that Chrome or VLC have implemented what may be better for the disk, and the problem is not so much that they have chosen this model, as that the system does not offer an option to eliminate the binaries that are not needed. In the previous transition (from PowerPC to Intel) something similar was experienced and the solution to save space was to resort to an application called Xslimmer that saved a lot of disk space by eliminating the code that we did not need, along with other variables such as languages that were not used. As an example of the web, Garageband went from occupying 537 MB to staying at 156 MB (71%).
It is understandable that if I download the application from the download web, all the code will be offered to me, but the same thing happens in the App Store downloads: the system does not delete the Intel code that I no longer need on my Mac with Apple silicon. Wasted disk space. Apple knows it and in iOS 9 it already implemented App Thinning: each device only downloads the code it needs.