Apple to Phase Out Rosetta 2 Starting With macOS 28 as Intel Era Ends

[MacRumors]

Following its WWDC keynote on Monday, Apple updated a developer document to indicate that Rosetta 2 will remain available through macOS 27.

Rosetta 2 enables Macs with Apple silicon (Arm architecture) to run apps that were built for Macs with an Intel processor (x86 architecture), by translating code.

Starting with macOS 28, Apple said that only a limited version of Rosetta 2 will remain available for older games that rely on Intel-based frameworks:

Rosetta was designed to make the transition to Apple silicon easier, and we plan to make it available for the next two major macOS releases – through macOS 27 – as a general-purpose tool for Intel apps to help developers complete the migration of their apps. Beyond this timeframe, we will keep a subset of Rosetta functionality aimed at supporting older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks.

The document also reiterates that macOS Tahoe will be the final macOS release that supports Intel-based Macs. However, Apple said that Intel-based Macs will continue to receive security updates for an additional three years.

macOS Tahoe is compatible with only a handful of Intel-based Macs, including the 16-inch MacBook Pro (2019), 13-inch MacBook Pro (2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports), 27-inch iMac (2020), and Mac Pro (2019).

macOS 28 will be released in 2027.

Article Link: Apple to Phase Out Rosetta 2 Starting With macOS 28 as Intel Era Ends

 

[turbineseaplane]

Bummer

Lots of software will get lost forever

 

[AusMness]

I just hope that my leftover intel-only apps will still work in the future

 

[Andres Cantu]

This means that macOS 30 will be the one to fully drop the security updates for Intel Macs.

 

[TruthAboveAllElse]

This is unfortunate. Rosetta 1 was almost unusable at times so made sense to phase it out. Rosetta 2 is usually totally invisible to the user, so a shame to break compatibility.

 

[iHorseHead]

Umm…What about apps like CIV VI?

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Intel getting an extra three years of security updates means that 2019 MBPs will have received 10 years of official support, from 2019 to 2029.
Where is the guy that made that massive thread the other day saying Intel computers would become bricks this fall?
And I think this confirms that M1s will likely be supported at least in a security capacity into the early 2030s easily.

While it’s definitely unfortunate that Rosetta is being dropped, Apple actually giving a timeline for these kind of things, including how long the Intel computers will get security updates, is big progress.

 

[StudioMacs]

This means that macOS 30 will be the one to fully drop the security updates for Intel Macs.

Since macOS 27 won’t install on Intel Macs, the security patches would be to the most recent version of the OS that can be installed on the Mac (such as macOS 15 or in some cases MacOS 26).

 

[mukiex]

I'll be fine if they only kept the portion of Rosetta used to keep Game Porting Toolkit working.

 

[MrGimper]

OCLP do your thing.

 

[Kwstas]

Imagine being a Mac Pro buyer who spent $50,000 in 2019 on the top-tier configuration, only for Apple to announce its migration to Apple Silicon a year later. Now imagine a company that invested in 10, 20, or even 50 of those Mac Pros—would you buy Apple again?

 

[StudioMacs]

Intel getting an extra three years of security updates means that 2019 MBPs will have received 10 years of official support, from 2019 to 2029.
Where is the guy that made that massive thread the other day saying Intel computers would become bricks this fall?
And I think this confirms that M1s will likely be supported at least in a security capacity into the early 2030s easily.

While it’s definitely unfortunate that Rosetta is being dropped, Apple actually giving a timeline for these kind of things, including how long the Intel computers will get security updates, is big progress.

The M1 Mac Studio was introduced in March of 2022, so I would expect at least 5 years from then (if not 7) of OS upgrades, plus another 3 years of security patches.

 

[iHorseHead]

Intel getting an extra three years of security updates means that 2019 MBPs will have received 10 years of official support, from 2019 to 2029.
Where is the guy that made that massive thread the other day saying Intel computers would become bricks this fall?
And I think this confirms that M1s will likely be supported at least in a security capacity into the early 2030s easily.

While it’s definitely unfortunate that Rosetta is being dropped, Apple actually giving a timeline for these kind of things, including how long the Intel computers will get security updates, is big progress.

A lot of people don't realise that Intel Macs are getting much better support than PowerPC Macs. Imagine spending like 3k on a Mac Pro and then it's supported only from Tiger to Leopard.
Like from 2005 to 2009.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Imagine being a Mac Pro buyer who spent $50,000 in 2019 on the top-tier configuration, only for Apple to announce its migration to Apple Silicon a year later. Now imagine a company that invested in 10, 20, or even 50 of those Mac Pros—would you buy Apple again?

Absolutely not.

They constantly burn these sorts of bridges.
They've done it before and they'll do it again.

 

[iHorseHead]

Imagine being a Mac Pro buyer who spent $50,000 in 2019 on the top-tier configuration, only for Apple to announce its migration to Apple Silicon a year later. Now imagine a company that invested in 10, 20, or even 50 of those Mac Pros—would you buy Apple again?

But Apple has done it before with PowerPC. I'm not really surprised and I think many people that know the history of Apple aren't very surprised.

 

[sw1tcher]

Bummer

Lots of software will get lost forever

First it was Apple dropping support for 32-bit apps. Soon, Apple will drop support for x86 apps.

 

[MarcoPohlo]

Time for Blizzard to finally make Battle.net native that's about the only App I still have using Rosetta.

 

[StudioMacs]

Imagine being a Mac Pro buyer who spent $50,000 in 2019 on the top-tier configuration, only for Apple to announce its migration to Apple Silicon a year later. Now imagine a company that invested in 10, 20, or even 50 of those Mac Pros—would you buy Apple again?

If purchased by a business in such quantities, the cost of the tangible assets over their useful life has been depreciated for tax purposes. In the US, the IRS generally assigns a 5-year useful life to computers and related equipment.

 

[Rafagon]

You mean Rosetta 2024.

 

[Andres Cantu]

Since macOS 27 won’t install on Intel Macs, the security patches would be to the most recent version of the OS that can be installed on the Mac (such as macOS 15 or in some cases MacOS 26).

True, I should have worded it differently but yes, exactly that.

Once macOS 30 is released, there will be no more security updates for macOS 26 for Intel Macs.

 

[Pezimak]

And so I guess the battle to make new Mac OS versions work on Intel Macs will begin. And their seems to be plenty of very smart people able to pull it off looking at the community.

 

[Zdigital2015]

I appreciate Apple’s candor and putting it in written form on the Developer’s site should make it clear to waffling devs which way they need to move.

 

[Populus]

I'll be fine if they only kept the portion of Rosetta used to keep Game Porting Toolkit working.

Exactly, I only need Rosetta for Intel, Windows games. Without it, most of the functionality of Crossover or Heroic Games Launcher could be left permanently broken…

 

[Populus]

And so I guess the battle to make new Mac OS versions work on Intel Macs will begin. And their seems to be plenty of very smart people able to pull it off looking at the community.

Honestly, I wouldn’t hold high hopes on that… once they finally drop Intel support, most likely the “drivers”, “controllers”, kexts, dependencies related to Intel machines will be removed. Maybe not completely in macOS 27, but it looks like macOS 28 will be the version where they will really make a deep cleanup of code and I doubt they leave that code related to Intel machines.

 

[woolypants]

Stop for a moment and consider how completely amazing Rosetta is. A technical tour de force.

I do wonder a little where this leaves the whole gaming triple-A title thing that Apple was talking about this time last year. Wasn't that basically built on Vulcan and Rosetta? Did nobody show any interest, so now it's forgotten?

EDIT: As somebody points out, this was built on Wine and not Vulkan.