Parallels Desktop 16 adds Big Sur support, 3D Metal support, and more

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  Parallels Desktop 16's Control Center under macOS Big Sur. [credit: Parallels ]

Parallels Desktop 16 launched on the Mac today. It's the latest major release of the software used by developers and others to run Windows, Linux, and macOS applications and virtual machines under macOS. Its most notable offering is full support for macOS Big Sur.

According to the Parallels representatives Ars spoke with, Big Sur support was no small task: Big Sur ended support for the third-party kernel extensions that Parallels built on. That meant an enormous amount of work was required to play nice with Big Sur—25 human-years of engineering work, they claimed.

In addition to supporting Big Sur for both host machines and virtual machines, Parallels Desktop 16 has a slightly different look to fit the different appearance Apple has gone with in Big Sur.

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