Apple has published three separate pages this month stating when Rosetta, the tool that lets Intel-only Mac apps run on Apple silicon, stops working. One says macOS 27. Another says macOS 27 too, with a narrower carve-out starting macOS 28. A third, posted eight days later, says macOS 26 was already the cutoff and that macOS 27 is Apple silicon only. All three pages are still live.
This is not a rumor or a leak. It is Apple’s own developer news and support documentation disagreeing with itself about a hard deadline that arrives with the rest of this year’s software on September 14.
Key facts
| Apple page | Published | What it says is the final Rosetta release |
|---|---|---|
| Developer News (item w5ngl9k2) | September 1, 2026 | macOS 27, with an exception for older Intel-based games |
| Support article HT102527 | Live as of this week | macOS 27, with the same games exception starting macOS 28 |
| Developer News (item hn0w0x9k) | September 9, 2026 | macOS 26; says macOS 27 is Apple silicon only |
What the first developer post says
Apple’s developer news item from September 1 frames Rosetta as a transition tool nearing its planned end: “In 2020, we introduced Apple silicon for Mac computers, providing Rosetta as a translation layer during the transition period. As announced at WWDC last year, we’re now concluding this transition.” It then lays out two steps. Starting with macOS 26.4, Mac users may already see a system notification when they launch an app that relies on Rosetta, telling them to find an Apple silicon native version. Then: “macOS 27: Final release to support Rosetta. Intel-only apps will no longer run on Mac computers with Apple silicon after this update.”
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The same post tells developers to “begin the transition immediately” and to build a universal binary that “runs natively on both Apple silicon and Intel-based Mac computers,” and separately instructs them to make sure their app runs when “macOS 27 ships this fall.” One carve-out survives past that point: “Rosetta functionality for older, unmaintained gaming titles that rely on Intel-based frameworks will continue to be supported.”
What the support article says
Apple’s support article on running Intel-based apps on Apple silicon, numbered HT102527, agrees with the September 1 developer post almost word for word: “Rosetta is currently available for any Mac with Apple silicon, and it will remain available through the forthcoming macOS 27, the next major macOS release.” It then draws the games line one release further out: “Starting with computers using macOS 28, Rosetta functionality will be available only for certain older, unmaintained games that rely on Intel-based frameworks.”
Two Apple pages, in other words, agree that Rosetta survives through the version shipping this fall, with a games-only remnant beginning two versions from now.
What the second developer post says, eight days later
A separate developer news post, published September 9 alongside the announcement that this year’s operating systems were about to reach customers, tells a different story: “Optimize your app for macOS 27. macOS 26 is the final release supporting Intel Mac computers and Rosetta, macOS 27 will be Apple silicon only. To limit your app to Macs with Apple silicon, set your Xcode build architecture to arm64 only, then rebuild and resubmit.”
That sentence moves the cutoff back an entire release, to macOS 26, and describes macOS 27 as Apple silicon only outright, which sits awkwardly next to the September 1 post’s instruction to ship a universal binary that also runs on Intel Macs.
Reading the contradiction
One plausible explanation is that the September 9 post is conflating two different endings: macOS 26 as the last release that still runs on an Intel Mac at all, and macOS 27 as the last release that translates Intel apps on an Apple silicon Mac. Those are genuinely separate facts, and Apple has described both of them correctly elsewhere. But Apple has not said that its own September 9 wording was shorthand for that distinction, and the sentence as published states plainly that macOS 27 will be Apple silicon only, full stop. This piece quotes all three pages and does not resolve which one is right, because Apple has not resolved it either.
| Milestone | What Apple has published |
|---|---|
| 2020 | Apple silicon Macs introduced, with Rosetta as a translation layer |
| macOS 26.4 or later | Users may see a system notification when launching a Rosetta-dependent app |
| macOS 27 (this fall) | Two pages say this is the final release that translates Intel apps; a third says Apple silicon only starts here |
| macOS 28 | Two pages say Rosetta narrows here to certain older, unmaintained games |
What Apple has not said
Apple has not published a correction to either page, has not said which document is authoritative, and has not explained why the two developer news items, eight days apart, describe different final releases. Anyone running an Intel-only Mac app should treat macOS 27 as the point at which it may stop working, since that is the earlier and more cautious of the two dates on Apple’s own pages, and should check Apple’s support article again before installing macOS 27 on September 14.
