As a result, Apple has already had the trademark for the term "Rosetta" for sometime, but this new activity and new application surrounding the name is notable given the increasing rumors that Apple is planning on transitioning from Intel to ARM processors in the near future. Apple officially dropped Rosetta support in Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) in 2011.
The trademark could simply be ongoing protection of a long existing trademark for Apple, but given the recent rumors, the new activity raises the possibility that Apple may decide to recycle the "Rosetta" name for a new emulation layer to transition from Intel to ARM. The trademark was filed under the following category:
A computers computer network And the computer software in which development of the computer programmes on a global communication network and the download for translating and performing are possible, computer software for computings performed by a cross platform, computer software, Electronic machines [apparatus and their parts]
Apple has been widely rumored to transition from Intel to ARM processors in the coming year, but there has be no rumors about how Apple would handle the transition with regard to emulation. Apple currently lists "Rosetta" without the "Apple" prefix in their list of active trademarks.
Thursday August 28, 2025 4:08 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
An iPhone 17 announcement is a dead cert for September 2025 – Apple has already sent out invites for an "Awe dropping" event on Tuesday, September 9 at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California. The timing follows Apple's trend of introducing new iPhone models annually in the fall.
At the event, Apple is expected to unveil its new-generation iPhone 17, an all-new ultra-thin iPhone 17...
Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 17 series on Tuesday, September 9, and last-minute rumors about the devices continue to surface.
The latest info comes from a leaker known as Majin Bu, who has shared alleged images of Apple's Clear Case for the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, or at least replicas.
Image Credit: @MajinBuOfficial
The images show three alleged changes compared to Apple's iP...
Monday September 1, 2025 4:35 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple will launch its new iPhone 17 series this month, and the iPhone 17 Pro models are expected to get a new design for the rear casing and the camera area. But more significant changes to the lineup are not expected until next year, when the iPhone 18 models arrive.
If you're thinking of trading in your iPhone for this year's latest, consider the following features rumored to be coming to...
Friday August 29, 2025 4:54 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple and Samsung have reportedly issued cease-and-desist notices to Xiaomi in India for an ad campaign that directly compares the rivals' devices to Xiaomi's products. The two companies have threatened the Chinese vendor with legal action, calling the ads "disparaging."
Ads have appeared in local print media and on social media that take pot shots at the competitors' premium offerings. One...
Apple is preparing to release iOS 18.7 for compatible iPhone models, according to evidence of the update in the MacRumors visitor logs.
We expect iOS 18.7 to be released in September, alongside iOS 26. The update will likely include fixes for security vulnerabilities, but little else.
iOS 18.7 will be one of the final updates ever released for the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR,...
But for anyone that's familiar with the concept of the Rosetta Stone, this could be very well the re-used "new" name for Safari's offline translation software as well. (I know what Apple's Rosetta was, just saying.)
That gives me some hope, because I was becoming increasingly worried that Apple was going to rely entirely on developers re-compiling code and not provide an emulation layer.
Obviously the key question here is going to be performance. How fast will binary translation/emulation be and just as importantly how fast are Apple's ARM chips going to be relative to modern Intel Core/AMD Ryzen.
The original Rosetta's performance was acceptable (quite impressive actually on a technical level), particularly for Apple's notebook lineup, but this was due in large part to just how far behind the PowerPC chips used in Apple's notebooks were compared to x86 at the time. Even the original Core Duos used in the first generation MacBooks absolutely destroyed not only the PowerPC G4s used in Apple's iBook/Powerbooks, but even a lot of PowerPC G5 based Macs.
I highly doubt Apple is going to have quite that large of a performance margin this time around so it will be interesting to see just what they can achieve.
...OTOH, if you put an SSD in an old (circa 2010) Mac with a pre Sandy Bridge Core Ix chip (or even Core 2 Duo) it is surprisingly usable today, so perhaps, for casual users this won't matter as much...
Can't say I'm excited. Please let this just be an additional ISA to be used where it makes sense, and not a whole scale transition (unlikely I know, but I can dream right.)
Oh no. Here we go again. I remember that this was how you had to run Power PC apps on Intel machines. That was living hell. What a kluge. If Apple is going to make us do the same for new ARM computers, I am going to be done with it and get a PC.
Biggest design overhaul since iOS 7 with Liquid Glass, plus new Apple Intelligence features and improvements to Messages, Phone, Safari, Shortcuts, and more. Developer beta available now ahead of public beta in July.
