In short, it translates apps built for Intel so they will run on Apple Silicon. Rosetta 2 is an emulator designed to bridge the transition between Intel and Apple processors. M1-powered Macs can run native, universal (in which the installer carries code for both Intel and Apple chips) and Intel apps.Īpple is encouraging developers to release universal apps where possible and is making it possible to run Intel apps on Apple silicon using emulation technology called Rosetta 2.
That said, applications are built to run on specific processors, and not every developer has done all the work necessary to make their apps run natively on Apple Silicon Macs.
