macOS: Inkscape app reported in system profiler as "iOS" app rather than "Apple Chips" app:

Summary:

macOS Inkscape app reported in system profiler as "iOS" app (resp. "arch_ios") rather than "Apple Chips" (resp. "arch_arm" or "arch_arm_i64") app on an Apple Silicon System.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Open System Profiler app ('/System/Applications/Utilities/System Information.app')
  2. Go to Section "Software" -> "Applications"
  3. Select row of Inkscape app in column "Application Name" and have a look look at column "Kind"

Alternatively, via Terminal:

% system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType -xml | grep Inkscape -A 9 -B 2

or resp.

% system_profiler SPApplicationsDataType -xml | grep Inkscape -A 9 -B 2 | head -n 5 | grep -A 1 arch_kind

What happened?

Inkscape app is shown as "iOS" resp. "arch_ios".

What should have happened?

Inkscape app is shown as "Apple Chips" resp. "arch_arm".

Sample attachments:

Proposed simple fix/solution:

Add a CFBundleSupportedPlatforms key with MacOSX as its only platform to the app's Info.plist file:

<key>CFBundleSupportedPlatforms</key>
<array>
    <string>MacOSX</string>
</array>

Additional context

See also similar discussions/fixes around that type of issue on:

LibreOffice Bug 144200: LibreOffice 7.2 for ARM on Apple Silicon claims its an iOS application https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=144200

LibreOffice Commit: Add CFBundleSupportedPlatforms key with MacOSX as its only platform https://git.libreoffice.org/core/+/562a40f453caa003187ff28c7798647d9e0b4ded%5E%21

Microsoft issue #157551: VS Code Apple Silicon build is identified as an iOS app in macOS system info https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/157551

Microsoft issue #121169, issuecomment 820653677: M1 VSCode binary can be run on iOS? https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/121169#issuecomment-820653677

BTW: Apple's own macOS apps and most third party apps contain that key in their Info.plist, so, it can't be wrong or invalid and is there for a reason, although not or poorly documented by Apple.

Version info


% /Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/MacOS/inkscape --debug-info
Inkscape 1.4.2 (ebf0e940, 2025-05-08)

                      Compile  (Run)
    GLib version:     2.76.3
    GTK version:      3.24.42 (3.24.42)
    glibmm version:   2.66.6
    gtkmm version:    3.24.9
    libxml2 version:  2.11.4
    libxslt version:  1.1.29
    Cairo version:    1.18.0 (1.18.0)
    Pango version:    1.50.14 (1.50.14)
    HarfBuzz version: 8.0.1 (8.0.1)

    OS version:       macOS 15.6 (24G84) arm64

System/OS:

% uname -m
arm64

% machine
arm64e

% /usr/bin/sw_vers
ProductName:		macOS
ProductVersion:		15.6
BuildVersion:		24G84
Edited by Sierk Bornemann