On Intel-based Macs, version 18 is a minor iteration, but still worth the upgrade. It’s the second version of Parallels to work on the newer Macs, and it’s well-refined.

MORE FROM DWIGHT SILVERMAN: Apple’s Mac Studio shows the power of its M1 chips, but isn’t priced for mere mortalsīut as good as Parallels 18 is, it still falls short of the capabilities of Boot Camp on Apple Silicon computers, largely because those processors aren’t Intel-compatible. The best product for doing this has long been Parallels Desktop for Mac, and Corel - which now owns Parallels - has released a new version that makes doing so even easier. With the advent of the M1- and newer M2-based Macs, Boot Camp is now dead, leaving virtualization software as your only option for running Windows on a Mac. They include software developers who write apps for both programs office workers who own Macs but also need to use Windows software for their jobs and of course gamers, who want to blast demons or guide a cat through a ruined city with titles unavailable for the Mac.

While that strategy has since been deprecated, there remain users for whom dual operating systems are important. That feature, called Boot Camp, was an important part of the Mac’s strategy after Apple moved to Intel processors it served as a kind of training wheels for those who were macOS-curious but still wanted a Windows safety net.

Boot camp m1 macbook