Apple will phase out Rosetta 2 in macOS 28

Posted by summarity 10/24/2025

Apple will phase out Rosetta 2 in macOS 28(developer.apple.com)

318 points | 335 commentspage 2

darkamaul 10/29/2025|

I’ve always been amazed by Rosetta, such an incredible piece of engineering. But I wonder if we’ll ever see its source code opened up.

It feels like keeping it alive could really help long-term x64 support on Apple Silicon, even if Apple decides to move on.

smat 10/29/2025||

Check out Asahi Linux, they run on Apple Silicon and have translation for 32 and 64 bit x86, so they even go further than what Rosetta achieved. Open Source as well.

ferguess_k 10/29/2025||

I'd also love to see the source code of the embedded M68K emulator for PPC Macs. I believe there are two versions -- one interpreter style and one dynarec style.

shrinks99 10/28/2025||

RIP a ton of older audio plugins.

braebo 10/29/2025||

I lost access to decades of my albums which can no longer open on my MacBooks. Some open partially running Ableton Live with Rosetta. My record label recently reached out asking for stems for an old song for a sync deal with Rocket League — after spending a week trying to revive the old sessions I concluded that it was impossible and they were forever lost thanks to apples complete abandonment of backwards compatibility. It’s heart breaking really.

Mashimo 10/29/2025||

Could you not open the project on a windows computer or older mac?

I also think current Native Instruments luncher "Native Access" still requires rosetta for the installation :)))

braebo 10/29/2025||

I was foolish enough to use Audio Units instead of VSTs back then… and even my oldest mac isn’t old enough. I managed to make a portable installer with the right Mac version and tried containerizing it but gave up after a couple days.

p0w3n3d 10/29/2025|||

I've already lost my "studio" (a few appliances in the corner of my room) due to upgrade from windows 7 to 10. Now it will happen again after I migrated to mac. I guess the "studio" should be left alone when it comes to upgrades. I'm starting to believe, that a "studio" is a set of software AND hardware, so I guess I won't sell my mac to buy new, but rather maintain it with given software and hardware on it, just maybe unplug it from the internet.

-- EDIT --

or just move back to windows, but I can't imagine it with the current state of AI bloat

wooger 10/29/2025||

It's just a choice between competent AI bloat (Microsoft) vs. laughable non-functional AI bloat (Apple).

redwall_hp 10/30/2025|||

Or current ones. I think Yamaha VOCALOID 6 still only ships for Intel and says to put your DAW in Rosetta mode.

yborg 10/29/2025|||

Photoshop plugins also.

bigyabai 10/28/2025||

macOS has been sending mixed signals to musicians since Catalina. I'd be surprised if people are still seriously using it for studio work.

Reubend 10/29/2025|||

There are tons of musicians on Mac, and it gets lots of studio use. I'd say at least 50% of music studios are on Macs from what I've seen.

ngcazz 10/29/2025||

For sure. But I'd be surprised if a significant number of those setups were running recent versions of Mac OS, especially in older studios. Stability is preferable to new features since old studio hardware is often very reliable and studio engineers are wary of ruining compatibility with system upgrades

lostlogin 10/28/2025|||

I can just imagine the Apple statement, like they did with flash/Flash.

‘We fully support the Studio.’

Edit: After hunting around without success, I’m now doubting my memory. I thought I could remember Jobs dismissively replying to a question about Adobe Flash that Apple supported flash (memory). Maybe I made that up?

keyle 10/29/2025||

That means the end of the Hackintosh era if the OS won't run x86, I imagine it won't install on x86 either.

cmckn 10/29/2025||

Aw that bums me out, brings back a lot of memories. Though I assume it’s been effectively dead for a while.

I haven’t dabbled with hackintoshes in nearly a decade, I stepped away around the time iMessage started needing those extensive hacks to work. Things seemed to shift away from driver/bootloader gaps to faking Apple hardware. Years earlier, I had an Asus Eee PC (remember “netbooks”?) that ran macOS without any major issues. I even built a machine that I believed I could hackintosh easily, though it never quite worked as well as I hoped.

The era of random companies selling pre-built Hackintoshes was so cool. Kids these days probably wouldn’t even believe it if you told them, like how Netflix used to actually send you a DVD in the mail. :)

pjmlp 10/29/2025||

Tahoe is officially the last version to support x86.

I never liked the idea, either get Apple, or get one of the other OSes.

It was like getting a Fiat Coupe with a Ferrari logo.

PeaceTed 10/29/2025||

By the time this happens, it will have been a 7 year transition. That isn't too bad considering the original Rosetta only got 5.

I do have sympathy for those that still use this in their daily work flow, but also... this is Apple. This is how they have always rolled.

sedatk 10/29/2025|

Meanwhile, I can still run my apps from the 90’s on my ARM laptop on Windows. That’s two architectures back to be clear: ARM64 -> x86-64 -> x86

kstenerud 10/29/2025||

Would be nice if they open sourced Rosetta, so that the community could continue support.

stuaxo 10/29/2025||

Bring back Rosetta 1.

User mode emulation for PPC and Intel Mac apps.

dangus 10/30/2025|

https://sheepshaver.cebix.net/

matjazk 10/29/2025||

Running Windows in Parallels. Even when running Windows ARM version, you still need Rosetta to run Windows x86 binaries.

Rochus 10/29/2025||

This is very frustrating. As if they couldn't afford to continue it. And at the same time they keep making the system more and more closed, so that you can't even run applications without Apple's permission. I don't understand why people still buy such products.

matthewmacleod 10/29/2025|

And at the same time they keep making the system more and more closed, so that you can't even run applications without Apple's permission.

This is simply not true.

Rochus 10/29/2025||

> This is simply not true.

Ok, then try to run a pre-compiled macOS M1 compatible application on your new Sequoia system, such as https://github.com/rochus-keller/oberonsystem3/ or https://github.com/rochus-keller/leancreator/. Requires quite some tricks so that at least some applications run without Apple's benedictions, but the tricks don't work for all such applications; and as it looks, they will also remove the last remaining work-arounds in future.

letrix 10/29/2025|||

LeanCreator:

- Unzip archive

- Try double-click, security error

- Go to Privacy & Security and click "Open anyway"

- Try double-click again, it opens fine.

ObreonSystem:

- Open DMG and copy all the files to a folder

- Try double-click, program opens fine but errors because missing files.

- Uses instructions given in README, running with './ObreonSystem', and program opens without errors.

macOS 26.0.1

Rochus 10/29/2025||

> "Go to Privacy & Security and click "Open anyway"

Thanks. Unfortunately this no longer works on sequoia; you first have to run "spctl --global-disable" in a terminal and then - within a few seconds - go to Privacy & Security and select the new option in the popup menu (which was not available before). See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41184553. That's what I meant by "tricks". And even though there are apps which still didn't work. But fortunately I still have a Mac with an older OS version which I'm not going to upgrade.

Klonoar 10/29/2025|||

Uhhh, “don’t work for all applications” needs more context here. What the hell are you talking about?

Rochus 10/29/2025||

Very simple. Some of the applications work with the "console/allow all" trick (which is a tedious procedure, but hey, I'm just a dumb customer), others still don't work but crash and give strange errors that some stuff could not be accessed. But none works immediately. On systems older than Sequoia, everything works as expected (I just have to start them via the context Open menu, which is ok).

Klonoar 10/30/2025||

...do you have any actual errors to showcase here? This all seems very odd to me and unlike anything I've ever experienced.

Rochus 10/30/2025||

There are quite many given that I only started using Sequoia a few weeks ago, and all happen only on Sequoia, not on my other macOS versions. A nasty one I discovered last week is e.g. that I have to delete and re-add an application (which generates key events for the operating system) to Privacy/Accessibility each time I re-compile it, otherwise the events are simply swallowed without any error. If you happen to be an Apple representative, we can continue by email.

ksec 10/29/2025||

I guess this is another way of Apple saying x86 is dead. Would have loved if Intel and AMD joined force to open up x86. Instead they are following the same path as POWER, likely doing it when it is too little too late.

nottorp 10/29/2025|

Ok, application developers will maybe update by then.

But this is another way for Apple to say "do not trust us for your gaming needs no matter what PR says".

latexr 10/29/2025|

From the page, inside an large block marked “Important”:

> Beyond this timeframe, we will keep a subset of Rosetta functionality aimed at supporting older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks.

nottorp 10/29/2025||

Shocking. Good idea but shocking coming from Apple.

More comments...