Comment by chuckadams
2 hours ago
They absolutely can, you can download and run virtually every app off the iOS app store on a mac, and it runs in an emulator which is entirely native, no virtualization involved. Pretty sure it doesn't even need XCode. Mojang is likely actively detecting and locking out the emulator from the release version of the app.
Which emulator are you referring to? The iOS Simulator (not emulator) can't run apps from the App Store
The apps are downloaded from the macOS app store by searching, then clicking the "iPhone and iPad Apps" tab. Most of them read "not verified for macOS" but let you install them anyway, so it's not just apps specifically enabling support for macOS launching them. Minecraft does not show up on that tab though, so it would seem that the listing is something that can be withdrawn.
And it's probably using something similar to the Simulator, but likely not the simulator itself. It's been a really long time since I launched any iPad apps on my mac, so I did get get a lot of the details wrong, sorry.