Apple Silicon (M1) Desktop Sync Compatibility

[_robin_]

Please can you upgrade the Dropbox app so that it works natively on Apple Silicon Macs (M1) without Rosetta.

Rosetta is not an option as it annihilates the battery.

This may be a duplicate of the below idea however that started for ARM processors in general and you haven't looked at it in 6 years so starting an Apple specific idea in the hope you see it.

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-ideas/Desktop-app-with-syncing-for-devices-with-ARM-processo...

There are also lots of comments on this thread to help support the case for demand: 

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-installs-integrations/Dropbox-Apple-Silicon-M1-install/td-p/... 

[sklar1000]

Dropbox consumes 1 GB of memory for me on my Mac Mini with M1 chip. This is nuts. Based on the response from Dropbox (needs more votes), this suggests a solution is 6-12 months away at the earliest?

[Martin H.53]

@sklar1000 Make that mire like 4-8 years based on their track record with the transition to 64 bit...

[Christopher D.10]

I am trying to determine if this comical, sad, or both (hint...it's both!).  I have built Mac apps that access system resources and I have converted them to run natively on Apple Silicon (it took me about 15-20 hours to recompile and tweak a few things).  Now, in the interest of full disclosure, my apps are not overly complex, but they are not "Hello World" apps either.  The amount of system resources Dropbox is using on an M1 Mac is shameful!  Yes, it does work under rosetta, but the battery and performance hit is sizable when compared to other other high-usage apps I run.  Given Dropbox's lack of any useful response in the past year, I have been tasked with finding a Dropbox alternative that runs native for our Macs...which also means that we will switching our Windows machine to the new platform.  All I know is that it won't be OneDrive because Microsoft is just as stubborn/pathetic (the lack of long directory/filename support is comical in OneDrive - this issue is an old SharePoint relic the Microsoft refuses to fix - because...hint...OneDrive still relies on SharePoint for enterprise cloud files services...yikes!) 

Dropbox...you have about 6 weeks for some actual guidance on native Apple Silicon support before you lose our corporate $$$.  Tick tock.

[Mannaffolki]

Painful as it may be. They don’t care.

I guess their interest is lying elsewhere.

Makes me wonder if their client aquisition is cheaper than actual retention. Must be since they’re making such stupid decisions.

And also makes me wonder how many people the company is ‘run’ by. The further we go in time, the less my guess is.

Dropbox isn’t making much sense to me as a company anymore. I’ll be switching when my subscription comes out as well unless they fix things.

Which we all know won’t happen!

[themaybeblock]

Hannah, your comments are borderline offensive. Timeframe for the changes or any other information that might make your users, oh, you know, feel like you give a flying flip about this ongoing issue?

[csdolby]

18th highest voted. Let’s keep this rising, folks…

[Jouni]

Sorry to tell you, but it is utterly ridiculous to wait for "more votes" to stick to the pacing of a worldwide industry and increasing number of users. I'm speaking on behalf of countless colleagues on the creative field who are considering other alternatives for Dropbox if the M1 support doesn't appear soon. You've so far succeeded to serve your customers. Don't stumble on your arrogance.

[Martin H.53]

@Jouni Completely agreed. This is a performance enhancement which won't be noticed by many end users and therefore won't get as many votes as some flashy new widget. However, those users who *do* care about it are typically in a position to make purchasing decisions and / or to advice large numbers of end users. Ignore them at your peril.

And that's on top of the fact that recompiling for Apple Silicon should be trivial if your codebase is anywhere near being properly maintained.

[Marc A.6]

I've stopped paying Dropbox months ago at this point, because I refuse to pay for obsolete software. I keep it as a huge read-only free repository, and I'm using a different product now.

However, I have to say that this comment thread has become a source of amusement: the ineptitude of decision makers at Dropbox is so comical at this point, that one can only laugh about it.

@Martin H.53 one wishes that they would get rid of the "flashy widgets" you mention, years and years of useless crap which has been haphazardly bolted on, and that nobody cares about, especially when it's just a poor excuse to inflate prices as much as they can get away with.

They had a decent product - file sync. They should stick to that, remove the crust that was probably envisioned by less than sober marketing interns, stop doing nasty things (not much time passed since Dropbox was literally hacking your Mac to get ungranted privileges behind your back https://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/09/20/dropbox-macos-security), bring back the price to reasonable standards in line with today's cheap storage costs, and keep up with technology (and by technology I mean, recompile for the M1, forget annoying MS Office integrations).

Will they do it? No. Dropbox has jumped the shark a long, long time ago. In fact, in the world of software, "has dropboxed" is the new "has jumped the skark".

You can see other products that are Dropboxing - they reach a point where the product is very good, and they start targeting other audiences forgetting the ones that made them successful. 1Password, anyone?

Do not despair; Dropbox is leaving a huge hole in the market that will be filled soon. It won't be too long before employees at Dropbox find themselves filling boxes with their belongings, wondering what happened, "the new corporate colors were so hip, the new logo was so artfully crafted, how could this happen?"
They're just asleep at the wheel, they won't listen, they won't care - until they crash.

History isn't kind to companies who don't listen.

[_robin_]

@Megan @Hannah - Has this been brought to the attention of the Product Manager yet or is it still with the customer support team?

The reason I ask is this is revenue impacting request and it seems to be causing churn. As a Product Manager myself, I know that normally PM's are targeted on Revenue, Churn and Acquisition. This will be negatively impacting those targets and they may wish to know.

Looking through the comments since I originally posted this, people have made a lot of good points. One of the most important points is this idea relates to another one and if we add all the votes up there are a lot. Another point is this shouldn't be looked at as an enhancement request. This is asking for the functionality of Dropbox to work on a mainstream device (new Mac's)