Docker for M1 Macs is finally available as a stable build

Docker Desktop for M1 Macs is finally available as a stable build. Available as a test build for a while, Docker’s native support for Apple Silicon had been a work in progress since November 2020. A few preview builds and release candidates later, we have the stable build available for download for all users.

Docker Desktop now supports Apple Silicon M1 Macs

With Docker Desktop for Apple Silicon, developers can build and run both x86 and ARM architecture images. Developers can also use docker buildx to integrate multi-platform builds into their pipeline, and also use Docker Hub to discover and share repositories that support multi-platform images.

Docker Desktop 3.3.1 for Apple Silicon can be downloaded from the official website, however, it is important to note that you still need to install Rosetta 2 as some binaries are Darwin/AMD64. The development team has said that this will be fixed in a future release.

Note that there are a few known issues with this build. Not all images are available for ARM64 architecture yet, and developers have to follow a few workarounds to make them work via emulation, however, this can sometimes not work as expected and can crash QEMU. MySQL image is not available for ARM64 either, so developers will have to use a mariadb image.

You can download Docker Desktop for Apple Silicon here. This release marks the rollout of yet another important development tool for M1 Macs, following the previous releases for Visual Studio Code, Node.js, Electron, and more.

Docker Desktop now supports Apple Silicon M1 Macs

Imran Hussain

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