Tableau on the M1 Macs.

0:00Hey, it's Tim here and in today's video we

0:01're doing something a little bit different.

0:03We're going to see if Tableau can run on an

0:05M1 Mac. Now a little bit of context here,

0:07I was actually on a screen share with my

0:09brother a while back, literally just a few

0:11hours ago and

0:12we did a screen recording whilst we were on

0:14Google Meet, hence this is a sort of a

0:17playback of that

0:18and I'm actually talking over the video so

0:20if anything's slightly off-tune with the

0:21video that's

0:22why the two are kind of recorded separately

0:24so that's pretty much it. But here we have

0:26it,

0:27our brother got his M1 MacBook Air 16GB of

0:29RAM. The funny thing about M1 Macs is you

0:32can't really

0:33spec them up so there's only one type of

0:35chip, one processor, one speed. So this is

0:37just the baseline

0:38MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM. Now if you're

0:41a tech fan like me you've probably been

0:43watching the

0:43reviews of people doing crazy things with

0:46these very, very essentially cheap

0:48computers for what

0:49they're able to do in terms of performance.

0:52So we basically wanted to see if this can

0:55run Tableau.

0:55Now the real big USB for me if I ever ran

0:58Tableau on an M1 Mac is actually the fact

1:02that an M1

1:02MacBook Air has no fan. So just imagine

1:05doing all that work, all that thing with no

1:08fan in your

1:08computer. I have a MacBook Pro myself, it's

1:12quite a decently spec 16-inch model and

1:15basically I hear

1:16the fan 95% of the time so just to work

1:18with it and have my fan not going would be

1:21great. Now

1:22here you can see we actually just

1:23downloaded the installer straight from the

1:25Tableau website.

1:26Nothing different, we just downloaded the

1:29DMG file which is like a package file for

1:31installers on a

1:32Mac and it just runs fine. And what

1:33essentially happens in the background here

1:35is a piece of

1:36software called Rosetta, Rosetta 2 to be

1:38precise, actually does some translation. So

1:41it looks at the

1:42installer software, it's obviously designed

1:44to run on Intel technology and it's

1:46essentially

1:47translating the underlying instructions to

1:50an ARM-based instruction essentially. And

1:53so

1:53it's not a perfect comparison and so

1:55therefore this is not optimized. So when

1:58Tableau make

1:59software they essentially make it for Intel

2:01-based PCs and they optimize it for that.

2:04That's why you

2:04can have it on a Mac and a PC. But we'll

2:06come to that point in a second because

2:08recently Tableau

2:09have been making Tableau in the browser so

2:11we'll come to that in a second. It's an

2:13important thing

2:14to bear in mind. But essentially the

2:15installer runs fine, there's nothing really

2:18big here,

2:18there's no alerts, no warnings, nothing

2:20even saying that this isn't really natively

2:22supported.

2:23And you can see here we've just gone on the

2:24download site and we've just got a basic

2:26installer going on there. Okay now we're

2:28nearly done with the installation, we're

2:30just waiting

2:30for this to finish. One thing I will say is

2:32I'm actually recording the videos for 2020.

2:354.

2:36That is due to be released sometime soon. I

2:38'm really hoping it's in 2020 and not in

2:402021.

2:41But I did something different with that

2:42release. I actually recorded the entire set

2:45of videos

2:46in the browser. Okay so I did the whole

2:48entire recording in the browser which is

2:50crazy if you

2:50think about it right. So this is a product

2:52that has you know started out on Windows

2:55then came to

2:55the Mac and with Tableau prep actually

2:57Tableau prep was the first part of the

2:59Tableau software

3:00to go to the browser. So when we look at

3:03the title of this video will Tableau be

3:05able to run on M1

3:06Mac? Well essentially yes because if it's

3:08got a browser then I think next year

3:10actually Tableau

3:12online in the browser with Tableau prep and

3:14Tableau desktop in the browser will

3:15probably be

3:16the best version of Tableau for several

3:18reasons. It gets updated immediately, it

3:21gets patched

3:21frequently because it's Tableau online, it

3:24's run and managed by Tableau. And then

3:26secondly

3:26the resources are much much better managed

3:28because it's running on a big AWS cluster

3:30where lots of

3:31people are using it at the same time. Table

3:33au can look at the you know general

3:35performance of all

3:36the assets there and optimize it to work

3:38really really well. So I actually think

3:40next year 2021

3:42might be the year where we turn to the

3:44browser as you know skilled professionals

3:46in Tableau

3:47for what it does. But anyway let's carry on

3:49here with the video let me hit play again.

3:50You can see the installation was successful

3:53no big if he's there it was really sort of

3:55easy to

3:55install and now it's just a matter of

3:57running the software. So whenever I finish

3:59an installation

4:00here we always put the files in the bin and

4:02we'll just wait for the next step.

4:04Okay so now I'm just hitting command space

4:07and we're basically running Tableau from

4:10the spotlight

4:11search function. And you can see again it

4:14just opens up fine. Now what's interesting

4:17is if you

4:17open up software like Adobe Photoshop or

4:19other software there's there's some sort of

4:20warning to

4:21say hey this isn't going to work. So it's

4:24really interesting because if what Tableau

4:26is doing is

4:27they're using graphical instruction sets to

4:30do some of the processing in the background

4:32or

4:32they're using specific sort of intel based

4:35instruction sets and Apple has actually

4:37been

4:38able to do those translations like for like

4:40then this is actually quite cool because it

4:42should mean

4:42that all of Tableau runs really really well

4:45. But this is not an official playback I'm

4:47just basically

4:48showing you how it works it runs really

4:50well. I wouldn't recommend anyone run this

4:52in a production

4:53setup even if you're a super keen bleeding

4:56edge fan boy don't do this on actual work

4:59because trust

4:59me what you don't want to do is find out

5:01that aggregations don't work properly or

5:03you don't

5:04want to find out that you know something

5:05basic like actions don't work properly and

5:08unless you

5:08really do extensive testing you won't find

5:10those until there's a problem. So just a

5:12pro tip there

5:13don't don't use this to run your production

5:15software. But here you can see we're in

5:18Tableau

5:18and we've opened up Superstore Sales. Now a

5:20little bit of advice here I was actually

5:22walking my

5:22brother through how to use Tableau in this

5:24set so you can see he's a little bit you

5:26know looking

5:27around here but eventually we got there in

5:29the end and I asked him basically to do the

5:32basic setup of

5:33Tableau workbook. So essentially take an

5:35extract make sure everything's good and

5:38also make sure

5:38that you know you can use it and it's zippy

5:41and it's fast and you can see it does

5:42everything as

5:43you'd expect it to do no real lag no real

5:45sort of performance gripes or stutters it

5:48just worked.

5:48Pretty much if I had this next to another

5:51laptop which was an Intel based MacBook Air

5:54I wouldn't

5:54be able to tell the difference but

5:56absolutely guarantee that this will run

5:58much much faster.

5:59This will run much much faster. The other

6:02thing as I noticed is that when we were

6:04doing this we

6:05were on a call I was in a you know Google

6:08Meet call for a long while and his battery

6:11went down

6:12only seven percent on the entire call and

6:14we were on it for an hour he was doing a

6:16screen recording

6:17and running Tableau and installing

6:19everything and we were you know chatting

6:21you know like brothers

6:22do in the background for a whole hour and

6:24his battery only went down to 10 percent

6:26just crazy

6:27like I don't think I could do that on my

6:28laptop without at least getting to halfway

6:30through the

6:30battery and I've got a big big battery in

6:33the big laptop so here we are anyway here

6:35you go and

6:35Tableau works really well and we're

6:37actually able to take an extract here

6:39nothing wrong here I

6:40thought this might be where the issues

6:42start to turn up because it can sometimes

6:44be a little bit

6:44difficult but no everything works just as

6:47expected and we're able to load it up. So

6:50in conclusion

6:51look it runs on an M1 Mac I still wouldn't

6:53use it and trust it just yet until Tableau

6:56themselves

6:57officially say hey this is good to use in

6:59an M1 Mac I wouldn't use this in a

7:01production setup it's

7:02not advised. What people will probably do

7:05someone will get this and start using this

7:07day to day

7:08and eventually we'll start to see the bugs

7:10coming out but you don't want to be that

7:11person

7:12it's not advised. Secondly Tableau is

7:15coming to the browser and at that point to

7:18be honest with

7:19you it won't really matter whether it runs

7:21on an Intel or an M1 based Mac it'll just

7:23work in the

7:23browser and if you've got Google Chrome,

7:25Safari, Firefox whatever browser you use

7:28you'll pretty

7:29much be able to get the best of Tableau

7:31through the browser rather than using it

7:33and in many ways

7:34that will be better because you won't have

7:35to install software on your machine it'll

7:37be easy

7:38instantly available instantly deployed with

7:40your licenses and everything working great.

7:42So that's

7:42pretty much been it if you've enjoyed the

7:44video you know what to do otherwise if not

7:46hit the

7:47dislike button twice and I'll catch you in

7:51the next video.