DEVOPSdigest

CircleCI announced its first M1 resource to provide customers with build speed that will bring their software delivery to the next level.

This addition meets the market demand for convenient, cloud-hosted Apple silicon support and helps development teams keep up with Apple’s hardware innovation velocity. This means that the more than 30 million developers who build Apple applications now have access to a large, cloud-based M1 resource that features 8 CPU/12 GB RAM for optimal storage and speed.

CircleCI offers cross-platform support to provide Apple developers with the flexibility and convenience required to build, test, and ship quality code.

“Running macOS projects using CircleCI’s M1 resource speeds up builds by up to 2x, providing Apple developers the ability to ship new products, feature enhancements, and bug fixes in record time at a fraction of the cost of other offerings,” said Alexa Loper, Senior Product Manager, CircleCI.

Key benefits include:

- Increased build speed for a better product experience: In benchmark testing, M1 set a new standard for build velocity by boosting macOS job speed by up to 2x. This is particularly useful for iOS teams as it expedites the App Store review process and helps get apps approved and published quicker.

- More convenient end-to-end testing, including GPU tests: CircleCI’s M1 resource includes hardware acceleration to transfer tasks typically done by software running on the CPU to the GPU for faster processing times. This makes for fast, effective, and smooth GPU tests within the pipeline that provide rapid feedback about the visual effects within applications and help minimize breaking changes before shipping updates.

"The swift support for Apple M1 aligns with CircleCI's mission to provide developer focused CI/CD solutions. M1 support on CircleCI can help teams stay ahead of constantly evolving software delivery challenges and maintain best practices by building with the latest technologies," said Katie Norton, Senior Research Analyst, IDC.