iPhone and iPad Apps on Apple Silicon Macs Explained

Running iPhone and iPad apps on Apple Silicon Macs is a game-changer. Apple has made it possible to seamlessly integrate your mobile apps with your desktop experience.

With the introduction of Rosetta 2, Apple's translation technology, you can now run iPhone and iPad apps on your Mac with ease. This means you can access your favorite mobile apps on your larger screen, without having to download separate desktop versions.

You can find iPhone and iPad apps in the Mac App Store, where they are labeled as "Universal" or "iOS" apps. This indicates they are compatible with Apple Silicon Macs and can be installed and run on your desktop.

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To run iOS apps on your Mac, you'll need a machine with an Apple Silicon chip inside, such as the M1, M2, or M3 chip. This includes Macs like the MacBook Air from late 2020 and later, as well as the MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch from 2021 and later.

To check if your Mac has Apple Silicon, click the Apple logo in the top-left corner of the screen and select About This Mac. In macOS Ventura and later, the Chip label on the pop-up window will show Apple or Intel.

To download iPhone and iPad apps on your Mac, launch the App Store from your computer and click your account name in the bottom-left corner. This will show the apps you have downloaded and purchased through your account, across various devices.

Not all iOS apps will look exactly the same on a Mac as they do on an iPad. UI components, animations, and colors may differ, so you may need to make adjustments to ensure a consistent look and feel across both platforms.

For example, if you're using Color(.tertiarySystemBackground) as the background color for some UI elements in your app, you may find that it's not white on a Mac, as it is on an iPad. To fix this, you can conditionally change the background color to Color(.secondarySystemGroupedBackground), which is white in Light Mode and gray in Dark Mode on a Mac.

Here are some Macs that support running iPhone and iPad apps:

To make your iPad app available on Apple silicon Macs, you can use Xcode's Supported Destinations section to add Mac as a destination for your app target.

Select the app target, go to the General tab, and click the plus button in the Supported Destinations section.

Choose Mac / Designed for iPad as the new destination. Now you can run your iPad app on a Mac by selecting My Mac (Designed for iPad) as the Run Destination.

Setting up your app for Apple Silicon Macs involves making it available on App Store Connect. You need to check "Make this app available" on the Pricing and Availability page.

This will also prompt you to verify compatibility by clicking the Verify Compatibility button, which you should do if you've tested your app on Apple Silicon Macs and it works as intended.

To remove the "Not verified for macOS" label on the App Store, you need to confirm that you've verified compatibility.

Conditional UI Changes can be tricky, especially when developing for Apple Silicon Macs. You can't always rely on userInterfaceIdiom to make changes.

Using ProcessInfo is a better option, as it allows you to handle UI changes based on the device type. This is because userInterfaceIdiom returns .pad when an iPad app runs on a Mac, which can lead to unexpected results.

The ProcessInfo class provides a more reliable way to determine the device type, enabling you to make targeted UI changes.