Roon native version for Apple Silicon [done]

Not what I was told a year ago, Bill. “We have a native M1 Roon for testing”. Never seen the light of day. Supply chain issues - what, in intangible software?! They’re having a laugh!

I was quite surprised 1.8 wasn’t recompiled for M1. The process is stupid simple.

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Care to elaborate? FWIW: Roon is using Mono (and until very recently, there was no support for M1)

I was surprised that 1.8 wasn’t released as a universal app on MacOS, which would’ve run natively on an M1 (first rev of Apple Silicon) Mac.

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Hopefully it won’t take too long for M1 (Apple Silicon) support.
Most applications are already Universal (Intel and Apple); Roon can’t stay behind…

Add me to the request for a native Apple Silicon version of Roon.

Yes, Roon works ok on Apple M1 Macs using Rosetta, but my experience of a M1 MacBook pro is the native apps are way-way faster and use much less power. Roon is simply not taking advantage of the new Apple silicon. Apple says all Macs will be on Apple Silicon by end 2022, so a native version of Roon seems an obvious priority.

This is outside my ken, but given the importance of controlling electronic ‘noise’ in computer-based hifi, I wonder if Apple Silicon gives Roon an opportunity to do an even better job than on Intel? (Nucleus fans might disagree). Maybe Roon wants to sell some more Nucleus units first?

Roon founders are ex-Apple are they not, so I guess and hope it’s on the way.

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Any ideas when this might happen ?

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Is there any evidence that an M1 Mac is electrically quieter than any particular NUC? My experience of Macs is that they are not the quietest beasts, but this will obviously vary depending on which particular model of Macbook, Mini or iMac you are referring to. Then, even if the computer is noisy, there is no saying whether or not this noise will couple into the analogue electronics of your audio system where it can affect sound quality. In many cases I suspect it won’t, but every domestic setup will be unique in this respect.

Any news for the Universal Binary build? Mono seems to support Apple Silicon.

Thx

I would very much hope Roon can soon run natively on M1. It’s true that it will run in Rosetta. But most other major apps (all the MS ones, all my editing apps, browsers, email) have all converted. A major advantage of M1 is vastly more efficient energy use and long-lasting batteries. But Roon is an energy hog, and it runs things down in a hurry.

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Can I add my voice to the request for a Universal Binary release of Roon to run natively on Apple silicon? Roon is the only “mainstream” application I use that hasn’t been updated.

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The M1 Macbook Air comes without a fan. To my ears it’s completely silent. Basically like an iPad etc. I remember it felt quite a bit surreal when I used it for the first couple of days because without any fan noise it just didn’t feel like a notebook anymore. I don’t think it can get much quieter than that except for if you’d actively try to shield the noise the electronics inside are making. But then I don’t know if anybody needs it to be that quiet.

Hi, we were referring to electrical ‘noise’ such as RFI rather than audible noise (which of course you can reduce by using SSDs and fanless cooling, or just put the offending items further away). Such electrical interference can couple into analogue electronics and affect sound quality, and may be generated in virtually any electronic device or its power supply.

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I fully admit to not knowing what’s involved in getting Roon to run natively, but, I do know that it’s now been nine months since the first release of M1-based Macs.

I understand that we seem to be in the midst of a global silicon shortage at the moment, and, so, I don’t know if Apple would have released a second-generation chip in November of this year, but, hopefully Roon has this sorted by the Fall, around the same time the updated chip would have released.

I’d imagine no excuses not to be running natively by the time we arrive at Gen 2, but, who knows?

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Oh, sorry. I completely overlooked that. Thanks for clarifying!

Roon is build on the Mono platform. This is an open source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET Framework. The Roon team has chosen to develop Roon with this platform. They depend on Mono to support M1 or not.

This is also why Roon does not always behave like a ‘normal’ Mac application or as a ‘normal’ iOS/iPadOS app.
For example Roon won’t allow you the use split screen mode on an iPad, or why Roon’s input fields behave weird on macOS.
Big advantage for the developer: only one code base for different platforms.

Usually a macOS application (and iOS/iPadOS app) is build with Apple’s Xcode. This way you’ll get an application that is native Apple. Xcode supports M1 applications from the beginning.
For a developer using Xcode it is usually easy to compile a so called ‘Universal’ application from an existing code source, running native on Intel and Silicon (M1).

So I think we will have to wait until the Mono platform supports Apple Silicon (M1) before we get a Roon Silicon version.

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When do you think that might be? Weeks/months/years?

Great info…I appreciate it!

@Jez Sorry, no idea.

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Roon is already running on Apple Silicon on the iPad and iPhone. They use the exact same ARM processors and OS core as the new Macs. You can even install iPhone apps on an M1 Mac if the app developer allows it. So the development platform has been supporting Apple silicon for a long time.

I think it is reasonable to expect a response from Roon on this.

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