Rosetta May Be Removed From M1 Macs in Some Regions on macOS 11.3

Installing the upcoming macOS 11.3 software update on an M1 Mac may result in Rosetta 2 being removed in one or more regions around the world.

In the third beta of macOS 11.3 seeded to developers for testing today, MacRumors contributor Steve Moser uncovered new strings in the 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."

Apple did not specify which regions where Rosetta 2 would be "no longer available," and no further details are known at this time.

It's unclear why macOS 11.3 might remove Rosetta 2 on M1 Macs in some regions, but perhaps there are legal or copyright reasons involved. Apple did not immediately respond to our request for comment, but we'll provide an update if we hear back.

The third beta of macOS 11.3 also adds some new settings with imagery for mapping game controller buttons to keyboard layouts, according to Moser's code-level findings, but we are not fully sure what this entails.