When Apple introduced Apple Silicon last year the audience was stunned. Their move to custom processors for their lineup showed a huge increase in performance and battery longevity. However, it also brought a lot of new possibilities to the table: Like being able to play and run iOS and iPadOS games on your Mac.
Which Macs can use iPhone and iPad Apps?
The list of Apple-made computers that can install and use iPhone and iPad apps is ever growing, as Apple releases newer hardware every year. Currently, any Apple device with an M1 series processor can access iOS and iPad OS apps. The current list of devices is:
- M1 Macbook Air (Late 2020)
- M1 Macbook Pro 13″ (Late 2020)
- M1 iMac (2021)
- M1 Pro and M1 Max Macbook Pro 14″
- M1 Pro and M1 Max Macbook Pro16″ (2021)
How to install iOS games on a Mac?
Installing iOS and iPadOS games on your M1 Mac has never been easier. In the past, people relied on, sometimes shoddy and bad, emulators to play mobile games on their Macs but now there’s no reason to use one, as Macs have native access to them.
All you have to do is open the App Store on your mac, type games in the search box and press the “iPhone & iPad apps” button near the top.
Searching for the App Store on your Mac?
There are multiple ways to find the App Store application and we are going to go through them right now.
The App Store button is normally present in the dock available at the bottom of your Mac’s screen. It has a blue icon with a stylized white A on it. If you recently got your MacBook or you never re-ordered or updated the apps on your dock, you can find it there:
If you cannot find the App Store button on the dock, it means that it got removed (usually by accident) when shuffling icons around or when adding new ones. Another way to find the App Store button on your mac is by using Apple’s Spotlight or, better said, by using your Mac’s search functions.
Simply press Command (⌘) + Space in order to bring up Spotlight and type the word App Store. It’s going to be the first entry in the list.
Another way to find the App Store button is by pressing the App Launcher (Launchpad) key on your touchbar or the F4 key on the function row keys. This will bring up a menu with all your installed applications. If you can’t see the touchbar icon on the Launchpad you can type “App Store” to bring it up as the only entry.
It doesn’t matter which way you searched for the App Store since all of the methods server the same purpose. Click on the App Store icon in order to bring it up. As soon as it appears on your screen you should be seeing something similar to this:
On the left side of the screen you can see a search bar. Click on it and type “Games”. By default, it will show you Mac Games. However, underneath the title of the menu, there are two tabs: “Mac Games” and “iPhone & iPad Games”. All you have to do is press the “iPhone & iPad” button and voila – you now have access to iOS and iPad OS games straight on your Mac.
Press the “Get” and then on the “Install” button to download the game you want and wait for the download to complete. Once that is done the “Install” button will be replaced by the “Open” button. Click on it.
Congrats, you are now running iOS and iPad Games on your Mac.
Not sure what game to install and play? Check out our iOS category for articles on iOS games!
Where to next?
I cover the mobile gaming industry and their shenanigans. Sometimes I teach you guys how to make games. Other times, I review games that I think people should know about (with the good and bad). But most of the time I do my best to try and explain why mobile games are the way they are and how we can fix this shoddy industry before PC & Consoles follow in it’s footsteps for good.
I believe that you might be interested in more articles on game monetisation. So if you want to stick around, you can check out “How Do Free Mobile Games Make money“, “Why Do Mobile Games Have Fake Ads” and “Why Do Mobile Games Have In-App Purchases“.
There’s also a monster post (about 4000 words) that answers the question: “How Hard Is It To Make A Mobile Game“. It goes in depth with actual examples on how Experience, Resources and Financials affect the difficulty of developing and releasing new mobile games!
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