Comment by gumboshoes
6 months ago
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.
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.
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.
Honestly, for apple this is above and beyond. They've killed support with less fanfare and compatibility support than what we see here.
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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)
> In 2025 you can run apps targeting W95 just fine (and many 16-bit apps with some effort)
FWIW, Windows running on a 64-bit host no longer runs 16-bit binaries.
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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.
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There's a lot of Win95 software that you can't run too. Microsoft puts a lot of work into their extensive backlog of working software. It's not just "good engineering" it's honest to god fresh development.
Just because Microsoft does one thing doesn't mean Apple has to do the same.
That's not a good thing for other reasons; e.g. there are a lot of inconsistencies in modern Windows, like pieces of Windows 3.1 still in Windows 11.
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That's not necessarily a good thing.
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.
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.
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.
If it's ok now then what's even the problem with letting it be?
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.
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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?
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.
How do you check if you're running any x86 apps?
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How much die area does it use that could be used for performance? How much engineering time does it use? Does it make sense to keep it around, causing ~30% more power usage/less performance?
There are many acceptable opposing answers, depending on the perspective of backwards compatibility, cost, and performance.
My naive assumption is that, by the time 2027 comes around, they might have some sort of slow software emulation that is parity to, say, M1 Rosetta performance.
Rosetta is a software translation layer, not a hardware translation layer. It doesn't take any die space.
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You can most likely use Vuescan, I use that with an old ScanSnap i500 (or something)
[1] https://www.hamrick.com
I have Vuescan and it’s not even close.
Love VueScan for my film scanner!
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.
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.
Rosetta for PPC apps was supported from the first Intel Macs released in January 2006 until 10.7 Lion was released in July 2011.
So just over five years? If Apple phase out Rosetta 2 in macOS 28, then it will have been supported for seven years.
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.
Me, too. Would be horrible to lose access to my scanner. I have no faith in Fujitsu tgat they would support my iX500.
QEMU will still be an option. Albeit not the fastest or easiest option compared to Rosetta 2.
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.