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Seems premature. My scanner software, SnapScan, still regularly updated, requires Rosetta. Abbyy FineReaser, the best Mac OCR, requires Rosetta. Although they m

Seems premature. My scanner software, SnapScan, still regularly updated, requires Rosetta. Abbyy FineReaser, the best Mac OCR, requires Rosetta. Although they may be related, as the SnaScan software does OCR with the FineReader engine.

morshu9001 1y ago
Owning a Mac has always meant not relying on 3P software. Forget printer/scanner drivers. Even if they target macOS perfectly, there will come a day when you need to borrow a Windows PC or old Mac to print. It happens to be ok for me as a SWE with basic home uses, so their exact target user. Given how many other people need their OS to do its primary job of running software, idk how they expect to gain customers this way. It's good that they don't junk up the OS with absolute legacy support, but at least provide some kind of emulation even if it's slow.
caseyohara 1y ago
The M1 chip and Rosetta 2 were introduced in 2020. macOS 28 will be released in 2027. 7 years seems like plenty of time for software vendors to make the necessary updates. If Apple never discontinues Rosetta support, vendors will never update their software to run natively on Apple chips.
- spacechild1 1y ago
  There is lots of existing software (audio plugins, games, etc.) that will never see an update. All of that software will be lost. Most new software has ARM or universal binaries. If some vendors refuse to update their software, it's their problem. Windows still supports 32-bit applications, yet almost all new software is 64-bit.
- out_of_protocol 1y ago
  Windows 95 was released... well, in 1995. In 2025 you can run apps targeting W95 just fine (and many 16-bit apps with some effort)
  - stalfosknight 1y ago
    That's not necessarily a good thing.
  - K7PJP 1y ago
    This isn't a new or unique move; Apple has never prioritized backwards compatibility. If you're a Mac user, you expect this sort of thing. If running neglected software is critical to you, you run Windows or you keep your old Macs around.
    - timw4mail 1y ago
      I seem to remember 68k software working (on PowerPC Macs) until Classic was killed off in Leopard? I'm likely misremembering the length of time, but it seems like that was the longest backwards-compatibility streak Apple had.
    - torstenvl 1y ago
      It's a bizarre assumption that this is about "neglected software." A lot of software is for x64 only. If Rosetta2 goes away, Parallels support for x64 binaries in VMs likely goes away too. Parallels is not neglected software. The x64 software you'd want to run on Parallels are not neglected software. This is a short-sighted move. It's also completely unprecedented; Apple has dropped support for previous architectures and runtimes before, but never when the architecture or runtime was the de facto standard. https://docs.parallels.com/parallels-desktop-developers-guide/software-development-specific-functions-of-parallels-desktop/using-rosetta-to-run-x86-64-linux-software-on-apple-silicon-macs https://docs.parallels.com/parallels-desktop-developers-guid...
      - galad87 1y ago
        Paralles x86_64 emulation doesn't depend on Rosetta.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
- linguae 1y ago
  This is also consistent with Apple’s previous behavior with backwards compatibility, where Apple would provide a few years of support for the previous platform but will strongly nudge developers and users to move on. The Classic environment in Mac OS X that enabled classic Mac OS apps to run didn’t survive the Intel switch and was unavailable in Leopard even for PowerPC Macs, and the original Rosetta for PowerPC Mac OS X applications was not included starting with Lion, the release after Snow Leopard.
  - delusional 1y ago
    Honestly, for apple this is above and beyond. They've killed support with less fanfare and compatibility support than what we see here.
    - bigyabai 1y ago
      Bully on me for owning hardware and expecting it to behave consistently across OTA updates.
      - renewiltord 1y ago
        I think you probably should not buy Apple hardware. It is not a guarantee they have ever offered that their software would behave consistently across updates. If this mattered to me, I would have done some research and rapidly found out that Apple has done this every few years for the last 30 years.
        subarctic 1y ago
        But their new hardware is so good though, it's kind of hard to pass up
      - searls 1y ago
        At what point in history have you owned a particular piece of hardware for use with a particular piece of never-to-be-updated software and installed a major OEM operating system release a full 7 years after release without issue? I doubt such a thing has ever happened in the history of consumer-facing computing.
- watermelon0 1y ago
  The main problem is not native software, but virtualization, since ARM64 hardware is still quite uncommon for Windows/Linux, and we need Rosetta for decent performance when running AMD64 in virtual machines.
sixothree 1y ago
I spent what I would consider to be a lot of money for a unitasker Fujitsu scanner device and am just astounded by how unmaintained and primitive the software is. I only use it on a Windows machine though, so I'm not in the same boat.
bitwize 1y ago
This is Apple's "get your shit together and port to ARM64, you have 2 years" warning. If you're not willing to commit to supporting the latest and greatest, you shouldn't be developing for Apple.
eisa01 1y ago
You can most likely use Vuescan, I use that with an old ScanSnap i500 (or something) [1] https://www.hamrick.com https://www.hamrick.com
- ZeWaka 1y ago
  Love VueScan for my film scanner!
- e40 1y ago
  I have Vuescan and it’s not even close.
joshuat 1y ago
I think this is exactly what they're issuing this notice to address. Rosetta performs so well that vendors are pretty okay just using it as long as possible, but a two year warning gives a clear signal that it's time to migrate.
- jayd16 1y ago
  If it's ok now then what's even the problem with letting it be?
  - coder543 1y ago
    One problem from Apple’s perspective is that it continues to cost them money to maintain both the translation layer and the x86_64 frameworks on an ongoing basis.
    - jayd16 1y ago
      I mean, is it really an excessive burden to keep a "too popular" feature alive for users? Features users pay for cost money to build and maintain. These aren't unique situations. It would be different if the feature wasn't popular at all but that doesn't seem to be the case.
      - coder543 1y ago
        It doesn't seem especially popular to me, so... citation needed? It's not being discontinued for being too popular, that's for sure. Apple doesn't want to maintain it forever, and a handful of legacy apps will never be bothered to update to native Apple Silicon support unless it means losing access to their user base. Apple has given them plenty of time to do it naturally, and now Apple is giving them a stronger reason and a couple more years to get it done. Apple is not randomly discontinuing it with no notice; two years is plenty of time for maintained software to get over the finish line. At the end of the day, Apple doesn't want to pay to maintain this compatibility layer for forever, and Apple's customers will have a better experience in the long run if the software they are using is not running through an extra translation layer. There will always be some niche users who want this feature to remain forever, but it's clearly not a significant enough percentage of users for Apple to be worried about that, or else Apple would maintain it forever.
al_borland 1y ago
They were pretty quick to sunset the PPC version of Rosetta as well. It forces developers to prioritize making the change, or making it clear that their software isn’t supported. It The one I have my eye on is Minecraft. While not mission critical in anyway, they were fairly quick to update the game itself, but failed to update the launcher. Last time I looked at the bug report, it was close and someone had to re-open it. It’s almost like the devs installed Rosetta2 and don’t realize their launcher is using it.
- mrpippy 1y ago
  Rosetta for PPC apps was supported from the first Intel Macs released in January 2006 until 10.7 Lion was released in July 2011.
  - JimDabell 1y ago
    So just over five years? If Apple phase out Rosetta 2 in macOS 28, then it will have been supported for seven years.
poemxo 1y ago
I usually agree with Apple but I don't agree with this. Rosetta 28 is basically magic, why would they take away one of their own strongest features? If they want big name apps to compile to Apple Silicon, why can't they exert pressure through their codesigning process instead?
- drob518 1y ago
  The “big name apps” have already moved to Apple Silicon. Rosetta helped them with that process a few years ago. We’re down to the long tail apps now. At some point, Rosetta is only helping a couple people and it won’t make sense to support it. I just looked, and right now on my M1 Air, I have exactly one x86 app running, and I was honestly surprised to find that one (Safari plug-in). Everything else is running ARM. My workload is office, general productivity, and Java software development. I’m sure that if you allow your Mac to report back app usage to Apple, they know if you’re using Rosetta or not, and if so, which apps require it. I suspect that’s why they’re telegraphing that they are about ready to pull the plug.
  - prewett 1y ago
    How do you check if you're running any x86 apps?
    - thijsvandien 1y ago
      There's this Silicon app that scans your disk for them: https://github.com/DigiDNA/Silicon https://github.com/DigiDNA/Silicon.
    - timsneath 1y ago
      In macOS 26, you can see every Rosetta app that has recently run on your machine by going to System Information and then Software / Rosetta Software. It includes the "Fallback Reason" (e.g. if you manually forced the app under Rosetta or if it was an Intel-only binary).
      - alwillis 1y ago
e40 1y ago
Me, too. Would be horrible to lose access to my scanner. I have no faith in Fujitsu tgat they would support my iX500.
jajuuka 1y ago
QEMU will still be an option. Albeit not the fastest or easiest option compared to Rosetta 2.

morshu9001 1y ago

Owning a Mac has always meant not relying on 3P software. Forget printer/scanner drivers. Even if they target macOS perfectly, there will come a day when you need to borrow a Windows PC or old Mac to print. It happens to be ok for me as a SWE with basic home uses, so their exact target user. Given how many other people need their OS to do its primary job of running software, idk how they expect to gain customers this way. It's good that they don't junk up the OS with absolute legacy support, but at least provide some kind of emulation even if it's slow.

caseyohara 1y ago

The M1 chip and Rosetta 2 were introduced in 2020. macOS 28 will be released in 2027. 7 years seems like plenty of time for software vendors to make the necessary updates. If Apple never discontinues Rosetta support, vendors will never update their software to run natively on Apple chips.

spacechild1 1y ago
There is lots of existing software (audio plugins, games, etc.) that will never see an update. All of that software will be lost. Most new software has ARM or universal binaries. If some vendors refuse to update their software, it's their problem. Windows still supports 32-bit applications, yet almost all new software is 64-bit.
out_of_protocol 1y ago
Windows 95 was released... well, in 1995. In 2025 you can run apps targeting W95 just fine (and many 16-bit apps with some effort)
- stalfosknight 1y ago
  That's not necessarily a good thing.
- K7PJP 1y ago
  This isn't a new or unique move; Apple has never prioritized backwards compatibility. If you're a Mac user, you expect this sort of thing. If running neglected software is critical to you, you run Windows or you keep your old Macs around.
  - timw4mail 1y ago
    I seem to remember 68k software working (on PowerPC Macs) until Classic was killed off in Leopard? I'm likely misremembering the length of time, but it seems like that was the longest backwards-compatibility streak Apple had.
  - torstenvl 1y ago
    It's a bizarre assumption that this is about "neglected software." A lot of software is for x64 only. If Rosetta2 goes away, Parallels support for x64 binaries in VMs likely goes away too. Parallels is not neglected software. The x64 software you'd want to run on Parallels are not neglected software. This is a short-sighted move. It's also completely unprecedented; Apple has dropped support for previous architectures and runtimes before, but never when the architecture or runtime was the de facto standard. https://docs.parallels.com/parallels-desktop-developers-guide/software-development-specific-functions-of-parallels-desktop/using-rosetta-to-run-x86-64-linux-software-on-apple-silicon-macs https://docs.parallels.com/parallels-desktop-developers-guid...
    - galad87 1y ago
      Paralles x86_64 emulation doesn't depend on Rosetta.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
linguae 1y ago
This is also consistent with Apple’s previous behavior with backwards compatibility, where Apple would provide a few years of support for the previous platform but will strongly nudge developers and users to move on. The Classic environment in Mac OS X that enabled classic Mac OS apps to run didn’t survive the Intel switch and was unavailable in Leopard even for PowerPC Macs, and the original Rosetta for PowerPC Mac OS X applications was not included starting with Lion, the release after Snow Leopard.
- delusional 1y ago
  Honestly, for apple this is above and beyond. They've killed support with less fanfare and compatibility support than what we see here.
  - bigyabai 1y ago
    Bully on me for owning hardware and expecting it to behave consistently across OTA updates.
    - renewiltord 1y ago
      I think you probably should not buy Apple hardware. It is not a guarantee they have ever offered that their software would behave consistently across updates. If this mattered to me, I would have done some research and rapidly found out that Apple has done this every few years for the last 30 years.
      - subarctic 1y ago
        But their new hardware is so good though, it's kind of hard to pass up
    - searls 1y ago
      At what point in history have you owned a particular piece of hardware for use with a particular piece of never-to-be-updated software and installed a major OEM operating system release a full 7 years after release without issue? I doubt such a thing has ever happened in the history of consumer-facing computing.
watermelon0 1y ago
The main problem is not native software, but virtualization, since ARM64 hardware is still quite uncommon for Windows/Linux, and we need Rosetta for decent performance when running AMD64 in virtual machines.

sixothree 1y ago

I spent what I would consider to be a lot of money for a unitasker Fujitsu scanner device and am just astounded by how unmaintained and primitive the software is. I only use it on a Windows machine though, so I'm not in the same boat.

bitwize 1y ago

This is Apple's "get your shit together and port to ARM64, you have 2 years" warning. If you're not willing to commit to supporting the latest and greatest, you shouldn't be developing for Apple.

eisa01 1y ago

You can most likely use Vuescan, I use that with an old ScanSnap i500 (or something) [1] https://www.hamrick.com https://www.hamrick.com

ZeWaka 1y ago
Love VueScan for my film scanner!
e40 1y ago
I have Vuescan and it’s not even close.

joshuat 1y ago

I think this is exactly what they're issuing this notice to address. Rosetta performs so well that vendors are pretty okay just using it as long as possible, but a two year warning gives a clear signal that it's time to migrate.

jayd16 1y ago
If it's ok now then what's even the problem with letting it be?
- coder543 1y ago
  One problem from Apple’s perspective is that it continues to cost them money to maintain both the translation layer and the x86_64 frameworks on an ongoing basis.
  - jayd16 1y ago
    I mean, is it really an excessive burden to keep a "too popular" feature alive for users? Features users pay for cost money to build and maintain. These aren't unique situations. It would be different if the feature wasn't popular at all but that doesn't seem to be the case.
    - coder543 1y ago
      It doesn't seem especially popular to me, so... citation needed? It's not being discontinued for being too popular, that's for sure. Apple doesn't want to maintain it forever, and a handful of legacy apps will never be bothered to update to native Apple Silicon support unless it means losing access to their user base. Apple has given them plenty of time to do it naturally, and now Apple is giving them a stronger reason and a couple more years to get it done. Apple is not randomly discontinuing it with no notice; two years is plenty of time for maintained software to get over the finish line. At the end of the day, Apple doesn't want to pay to maintain this compatibility layer for forever, and Apple's customers will have a better experience in the long run if the software they are using is not running through an extra translation layer. There will always be some niche users who want this feature to remain forever, but it's clearly not a significant enough percentage of users for Apple to be worried about that, or else Apple would maintain it forever.

al_borland 1y ago

They were pretty quick to sunset the PPC version of Rosetta as well. It forces developers to prioritize making the change, or making it clear that their software isn’t supported. It The one I have my eye on is Minecraft. While not mission critical in anyway, they were fairly quick to update the game itself, but failed to update the launcher. Last time I looked at the bug report, it was close and someone had to re-open it. It’s almost like the devs installed Rosetta2 and don’t realize their launcher is using it.

mrpippy 1y ago
Rosetta for PPC apps was supported from the first Intel Macs released in January 2006 until 10.7 Lion was released in July 2011.
- JimDabell 1y ago
  So just over five years? If Apple phase out Rosetta 2 in macOS 28, then it will have been supported for seven years.

poemxo 1y ago

I usually agree with Apple but I don't agree with this. Rosetta 28 is basically magic, why would they take away one of their own strongest features? If they want big name apps to compile to Apple Silicon, why can't they exert pressure through their codesigning process instead?

drob518 1y ago
The “big name apps” have already moved to Apple Silicon. Rosetta helped them with that process a few years ago. We’re down to the long tail apps now. At some point, Rosetta is only helping a couple people and it won’t make sense to support it. I just looked, and right now on my M1 Air, I have exactly one x86 app running, and I was honestly surprised to find that one (Safari plug-in). Everything else is running ARM. My workload is office, general productivity, and Java software development. I’m sure that if you allow your Mac to report back app usage to Apple, they know if you’re using Rosetta or not, and if so, which apps require it. I suspect that’s why they’re telegraphing that they are about ready to pull the plug.
- prewett 1y ago
  How do you check if you're running any x86 apps?
  - thijsvandien 1y ago
    There's this Silicon app that scans your disk for them: https://github.com/DigiDNA/Silicon https://github.com/DigiDNA/Silicon.
  - timsneath 1y ago
    In macOS 26, you can see every Rosetta app that has recently run on your machine by going to System Information and then Software / Rosetta Software. It includes the "Fallback Reason" (e.g. if you manually forced the app under Rosetta or if it was an Intel-only binary).
    - alwillis 1y ago

e40 1y ago

Me, too. Would be horrible to lose access to my scanner. I have no faith in Fujitsu tgat they would support my iX500.

jajuuka 1y ago

QEMU will still be an option. Albeit not the fastest or easiest option compared to Rosetta 2.