Creating an SD card with rpi-imager results in an error message stating "error writing image" and the end result is an SD card with no partition table what so ever. Running dd from the terminal onto the same SD card will make a proper image.
Formatting the SD card works. I'm using a 2021 MacBook Pro (with an 8 core M1 Pro CPU and macOS 12.5) and it's built-in SD card reader with a 16GB SanDisk card.
During the same fail session I came across the following: "Error reading from storage. SD card may be broken"