It is possible that installing the upcoming macOS Big Sur 11.3 update on an M1 Mac when the update becomes available may result in Rosetta 2 support being removed in certain regions of the world.
Following the seeding of the third beta of macOS 11.3 on Tuesday, MacRumors contributor and iOS developer Steve Moser found new strings in the new beta’s code, indicating that “Rosetta will be removed upon installing this update.” Another new string reads “Rosetta is no longer available in this region. Applications requiring Rosetta will no longer run.”
It isn’t specified what the regions would be where Rosetta 2 would no longer be available.
New in Mac 11.3 beta 3 thread. 🧵
Apple is getting more serious about gaming on macOS with settings to map controller buttons to keyboard layouts. pic.twitter.com/cWRefKMQ50— Steve Moser (@SteveMoser) March 3, 2021
The Rosetta 2 feature allows Macs powered by Apple Silicon, such as the M1 Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro models that are currently available, to run X86 apps built for Intel-based Macs. macOS Big Sur works in the background and when an Intel-based application is opened it automatically translates the app for use with Apple Silicon the first time the app is run.
As to why macOS 11.3 might remove Rosetta 2 on M1 Macs in some regions, there could be legal or copyright issues involved in certain countries.
