Apple may plan to remove support for Rosetta 2 on M1 Macs in certain regions with the release of macOS 11.3, according to the code strings found in the third beta of the software update.
The code strings found in the third beta of macOS 11.3, which was released to developers on Tuesday, suggest that Rosetta 2 “will be removed when this update is installed.” Another string may recommend that “Rosetta is no longer available in your area. Applications that require Rosetta will no longer run.”
The strings were the first spotted by MacRumors collaborator Steve Moser.
Rosetta 2 is a translation layer that allows Apple Silicon Macs to run applications built for the Intel x86 architecture. It is part of a suite of features designed to smooth the transition from Intel processors to Apple Silicon, a switch that started in 2020 and is expected to last two years.
It is unclear why Apple would remove Rosetta 2 in some regions, especially since almost half of all popular macOS applications still needed the translation layer as of February 2021. However, the code strings in macOS 11.3 do not necessarily indicate that support to be cut in that software update.
In addition to the strings that refer to Rosetta 2, Moser also discovered a code that indicates that Apple could add the ability to map the controller buttons to keyboard layouts, along with other minor updates.