For years, if Apple users wanted to run their favorite iOS apps on their computer, they’d have to do so via third-party applications, emulators, or other non-official methods. Now, if you own an Apple Silicon Mac (the newer ones with an M1 processor) and have the Big Sur iOS, you’ll have able to run iPhone and iPad apps on your Mac computer.
See also: Best Apple Macbooks
What’s the Benefit of Using iOS Apps on My Mac?
Applications on the iPhone and iPad have come a long way. Now, you can have the full functionality of word processors, video editors, and other applications in the palm of your hand. Especially if you work on your iPad frequently, you may want to transfer data or workflows from your tablet to your computer. With this new Big Sur OS update, you can do just that.
Can My Mac Run iOS Apps?
Nov 22, 2020 The current iOS app experience on an M1 machine running Big Sur is almost comical; it’s so silly. There is no default tool-tip that explains how to replicate common iOS interactions like swipe-from-edge — instead a badly formatted cheat sheet is buried in a menu. The apps launch and run in windows only. Dec 22, 2020 Mac. Mac; MacBook Pro. The 8 Bit notes the likely reason that emulating Nintendo Switch games on M1 Macs is even possible and how an emulator could come to iOS. Developers have been. Nov 12, 2020 Nov 23, 2020. Apple is going to allow users to run iOS apps on Mac thanks to its new M1 chip and macOS Big Sur. Developers will be able to publish their iPhone and iPad apps on the Mac App Store. The first step is downloading Xcode and installing the iOS simulator on your Mac. Here’s how to install the iOS simulator on your Mac: Download and install Xcode from the Mac App Store. Right click on the Xcode icon in the Applications folder and select Show Package Contents, as shown below. Open the iPhone Simulator application.
As mentioned, you can only run iOS apps on your Mac if your computer has an Apple Silicon chip. To check if your device is capable, follow these steps below:
- Click on the Apple logo in the top left corner of your screen.
- Click on About this Mac.
- If, under the Chip section, it says Apple M1, then you’re capable of running iOS apps on your computer.
How to Run iOS Apps on Mac
Downloading iOS apps on your Mac computer is extremely simple. If you know how the App Store works on your Mac, you’ll have no problem at all!
Android Studio Apple M1 Emulator
- Open the App Store on your Mac.
- Click on the search field in the App Store, and type in the app you want to download. Keep note that not all iOS apps are available on the Mac Apple Store.
- In the search results, select the iPhone & iPad Apps tab.
- Click the Get button next to the app search result.
- Download it, and you’ll be able to run iOS apps on a Mac!
What is an Emulator and Should I Use One?
With the new M1 MacBooks and its silicon chips, emulators have become rather obsolete and you don’t see them mentioned often like 10 years ago in the early 2010s. In short, an emulator is a program that ’emulates’ another kind of device or service. For example, in the early days of the Mac, you would have to download an emulator in order to run Windows OS on your Mac. Nowadays, there are more comprehensive services (one even built into the Mac itself) that allow you to do this more seamlessly.
Back in the day, it was extremely common to download emulators from shady third-party websites in order to run iOS apps, Gameboy games, and Windows programs on a Mac. Not only would you have to find the emulator application online, but you’d have to find the individual apps or programs you want to run as well. This made things pretty complicated and many people infected their devices with viruses and general malware.
If you have an older Mac and desperately need to use an iOS app on your computer, yes, you should use an emulator. There are plenty of resources on the internet to help guide you through the process to ensure you don’t download a virus and ruin your computer. If the idea of downloading a program off an unverified third-party source makes you feel uncomfortable, check out which Macs you would need to run iOS apps without an emulator.
Looking for recommendations? Here are just a few worth checking out:
- iPadian
- Smartface
- Appetize
What’s the Best Mac for iOS Apps?
All Macs manufactured in 2020 and beyond will have an Apple silicon chip (also known as Apple M1). If you want to run iOS apps without using an emulator, we would recommend purchasing one of the models below.
- iMac (24 inch, M1, 2021)
- MacBook Pro (13 inch, M1, 2020)
- MacBook Air (M1, 2020)
- Mac mini (M1, 2020)
Source: androidauthority.com
Developer @daeken on Twitter has gotten Nintendo Switch games to run on Apple Silicon Macs. The implementation is not quite perfect yet due to the technical limitations of the MoltenVK runtime library, which “maps Vulkan to Apple’s Metal graphics framework.” Even with these limitations, the emulation looks very promising.
In the video posted on Twitter you can see Super Mario Odyssey running on macOS. As the game begins, though, you can start to see those technical limitations. The developer has also installed The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on macOS and is sure to test more titles.
The 8 Bit notes the likely reason that emulating Nintendo Switch games on M1 Macs is even possible and how an emulator could come to iOS and iPadOS.
Apparently, emulating a Switch CPU on Apple Silicon seems to be easy, given that the Switch itself runs on an ARM processor.
Ipadian Mac
Speaking about the possibility of a similar port to iOS, apart from macOS, the developer notes in a reply that “if Hypervisor.framework is ever made available on iOS, porting it would be pretty painless I imagine.” The Hypervisor.framework is the same framework that initially enabled a developer to successfully virtualize Windows ARM on Apple Silicon, as per The 8-Bit’s reporting.
Developers have been experimenting with M1 Macs ever since they were released, and it’s incredibly impressive to see the pace at which this kind of work is being done. It’s important to note however that Nintendo takes a very anti-emulation stance when it comes to playing their games on other platforms and can get very litigious when it comes to developers creating or distributing their software and ROMs. Regardless, this is still an incredibly cool tech demo that highlights the increased flexibility that comes with the new ARM architecture that Apple Silicon is built upon.
Ps2 Emulator M1 Mac
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