A new community project called Virtual Mac runs full macOS on the iPad Pro with M1 or M2 and the iPad Air with M1. It is not a remote desktop. The virtual machine runs on the tablet itself with GPU acceleration, which is how Xcode, Terminal, and Final Cut Pro work directly on an iPad.
The code is published on GitHub as VirtualMacOniPad, and is available for free for anyone to try as long as they have the right iPad model with the right iPadOS version.
Virtual Mac Runs macOS 12 Monterey Through macOS 27 Golden Gate on iPad
The app uses the iPad’s hardware CPU virtualization with paravirtualized graphics. The developer says CPU and GPU performance lands in the same class as VirtualBuddy or UTM running macOS on an M1 or M2 Mac.
Supported guest versions run from macOS 12 Monterey up to macOS 27 Golden Gate. The recommended range is macOS 13 Ventura through macOS 15 Sequoia. macOS 26 Tahoe and macOS 27 Golden Gate are experimental and can show visual or performance problems.
You can even use macOS 27 Golden Gate beta on an iPad Pro and edit video in Final Cut Pro. Magic Keyboard, trackpad, and Apple Pencil pressure all work, as well as Steam games.
Only Jailbroken iPads on iPadOS 16.3.1 or Earlier Qualify
Virtual Mac needs an iPad Pro with M1 or M2, or an iPad Air with M1, running iPadOS 16 up to iPadOS 16.3.1. Apple removed Hypervisor support from the iPadOS kernel in iPadOS 16.4, so anything newer is out for now. The developer says iPadOS 15 support should be fairly easy to add, while iPadOS 16.4 and later is a much bigger job.
iPad Pro models with 1TB or 2TB of storage have 16GB of RAM and give the best experience. The install path is short once the iPad is jailbroken with Dopamine:
- Add the developer’s repository in Sileo
- Install Virtual Mac
- Download macOS from inside the app, which handles the rest of the install
iCloud and Apple Account sign-in do not work, so you choose Set Up Later during macOS setup. Other apps and features such as App Store, Bluetooth, AirDrop, and Netflix DRM also don’t work so you lose out a lot of functionality. A Magic Keyboard is recommended, though the touchscreen and on-screen keyboard work without one.
YouTuber Snazzy Labs spent $2,074 on new-old-stock iPads to test out Virtual Mac, including a 13-inch iPad Pro with M2, 16GB of RAM, and 2TB of storage. Firmware version decides everything here, so a random used iPad is a gamble. It worked well once he was able to jailbreak his iPad and set up everything. His tests included web browsing, video editing, and even some light gaming on Steam.
His video puts the cost of virtualization at about 20% in single-core performance and nearly 50% in multi-core performance. While it seems like a huge performance hit, it is still faster than all older Intel Macs. Xcode also works, and the project links a matching release for each macOS version, from Xcode 14.2 on macOS 12 Monterey up to Xcode 26.3 on macOS 15 Sequoia.
Our Take
The demo is impressive, and it shows how much power an iPad Pro carries that iPadOS never lets people use. The M5 iPad Pro only widens that gap but of course, it is not in the supported list at all.
For now this is a project for tinkerers. It needs a jailbreak and an iPad that never updated past iPadOS 16.3.1, so I would not send most readers hunting for one. It would be great for Apple to finally open up iPadOS more and let users do what they want with apps and software, just like a Mac. Most users will still not tinker to this extent, but for advanced users like yours truly, this will make the iPad Pro even more powerful.
