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Apple has announced its final version of macOS for Intel
- mdp2021 1y agoOriginal title: # The Exit Strategy // After two decades, Apple has announced its final version of MacOS for Intel. Guess that means Hackintoshing is done, too
- leakycap 1y agoI appreciate them giving this kind of heads up; I'll be able to buy even cheaper used Intel machines much sooner.
- guappa 1y agoWhy would you want that? Not like they work especially well with linux.
- UberFly 1y agoThey work great with Linux.
- guappa 1y agoNo they don't… does the touchbar even work at all?
- powerbook5300CS 1y agoMac pros
- Schiendelman 1y agoWhy on earth would you buy an Intel Mac Pro instead of a much faster, cheaper, PC?
- yurishimo 1y agoIf you can buy one used for a steal, an Intel Mac Pro would make a sweet homelab server.
- leakycap 1y agoThe giant stable of macOS software & hardware I currently use didn't break overnight, and most of it doesn't work with linux. An i9/32GB RAM MBP now costs under $350 used. It will only get better.
- rock_artist 1y agoThe interesting questions are: - When will their toolset drop support for compiling for Intel / x86_64? - When will they drop Rosetta2? Compiling/delivering universal binaries is something that as a developer, especially for some markets, you’d like to keep. meaning we try to support older Macs as possible. For Rosetta2, it might be less needed with all apps transitioned, but for developers using containers, it might be more important to have Intel based containers for a longer period.
- coconut08 1y agoseems like rosetta 2 will be around for a long time, especially considering they are still putting dev effort into game porting toolkit which is heavily dependent on rosetta 2.
- camillomiller 1y agoI have answers ;) • Rosetta will remain available as a general-purpose tool through macOS 27 to help developers migrate their Intel apps, with limited gaming-focused functionality continuing beyond that timeframe • Intel-based Macs will continue receiving security updates for 3 years following macOS Tahoe • After the general Rosetta support ends, Apple will maintain a subset of Rosetta functionality specifically for older unmaintained gaming titles that depend on Intel-based frameworks
- necubi 1y agoRosetta is also very useful for running x86 Linux containers for dev workflows. Hopefully that will continue to be supported.
- guappa 1y agoIt's apple…
- matthewmacleod 1y agoWho literally yesterday launched a container framework and tool.
- Springtime 1y agoWhich also marks the end of being able to run non-Arm based Windows on Macs natively.
- mrkstu 1y agoWhen you have ARM Windows available that can run Intel Windows software, I don't think that really matters.
- tonyedgecombe 1y agoIsn’t bootcamp there for legacy Windows apps rather than stuff compiled for ARM?
- zevon 1y agoBootcamp doesn't really exist anymore but you can use tools like UTM or Parallels to run the ARM build of Windows 11 in a VM - and that build includes an X86 emulation layer, so you can run X86 Windows applications in a double virtualization/emulation whammy. Works surprisingly well, in my limited experience.
- ksec 1y agoAt home, I am still on my Early 2015 MacBook Pro running latest macOS with OpenCore patcher. As long as you don't use Safari because Cloudflare think you are a bot it is mostly fine. The problem with all MacBook after my generation is their keyboard sucks. They have some variant and tiny improvement every year but it still sucks. The 1.5mm key travel is about the minimum I could take. Both butterfly and new scissors, despite giving them time I never quite come to terms with it. But I guess this is one more year of macOS and perhaps two more for Safari + security. 2028 will be the final deadline.
- Cu3PO42 1y agoI actually disagree. I really like the keyboard on the current MBP and would describe it as a significant departure from the butterfly keyboard that came after your model. That said, keyboards are personal preference, so I wish you luck in finding a good replacement. I also quite enjoy current ThinkPads.
- danielbln 1y agoYeah, I thought the 2016-2019 keyboards were absolute ass, but they fixed it with from the M1 laptops onwards.
- winrid 1y agoReally? Maybe it's a modern laptop thing but I also don't like the newer ones. There is almost no travel, it's so weird, and I broke TWO keyboards in a year after having the previous one for 5 years. I have to be super sensitive with them, whereas I could type with a brick with my pre-2020 thinkpads (which also weigh less than 3lbs...)
- concinds 1y agoI used a 2015MBP for many years, now a new Apple silicon one. The 2015 feels really annoying to type on now, too squishy, requires more force than feels natural. The new keyboards feel terrific in comparison. I never had reliability issues, despite spilling a pretty large amount of water on it once.
- netfortius 1y agoIt's interesting how definitive some of these decisions are, while US administration may decide one day that Intel is strategically critical for the American economy, alongside its local fabrication sources, and apple and its respective manufacturing places may not be.
- aaronbrethorst 1y agoIntel != x86_64. Or, at least, they cannot if they hope to survive.
- kombine 1y agoRe both discontinuation of Windows 10 and Mac OS for Intel Macs: it is criminal that the two biggest corporations in the world cannot maintain softwares for millions of hardware units and force their untimely retirement.
- apples_oranges 1y agoIndeed. I still use my iPad 3 (15 years old or so) as a pdf and book reader and music player. The unnecessary obsolescence is annoying
- beeman 1y agoBut what makes it obsolete if this is what you use it for?
- thisislife2 1y agoIt's the only thing he can use it for because of planned obsolescence.
- kennywinker 1y ago1. No more security updates means using it is deeply risky 2. A closed ecosystem and App store bitrot combine to make installing anything new on it next to impossible. So, while it may be still useful as a pdf reader, it’s no longer useful as a general purpose computing device - but it COULD be if it was supported. Make no mistake - most of these devices won’t be used as pdf readers - they will end up in the landfill. This is part of the business model, and we + the environment pay for it.
- Schiendelman 1y agoWhat do you mean, "no more security updates"?
- jagger27 1y ago
- eviks 1y ago> the company did not try to force this transition to happen faster than it needed to. > is ultimately unnecessary—and it would lead to a lot of good hardware ending up in landfills. So this didn't need to happen at all
- fastball 1y agoThat second line is about Windows 10.
- smallstepforman 1y agoI considered and bought Apple hardware when they transitioned to x86_64, since I run more than OSX systems. I’m not switching to Arm since I cannot run() non OSX systems. So their personal computer line is dead to me. () I’m aware of Asahi Linux, but that is not what I run.
- eviks 1y agoIs Windows arm also not suitable?
- kristopolous 1y agoThey're introductory m4 is often< $500. I'm generally not a fan but hell, that's peanuts Got mine for $460
- bigyabai 1y agoComputers are just getting cheap, now. You can buy an equivalently specced Ryzen Mini PC for $300. That said, cheap Macs never really grabbed my attention and more than a cheap ChromeOS box does. I want to pay for more features, not less. I already have a media transcode server, there's really nothing I could use a Mac mini for besides maybe the world's most lame set-top box.
- kristopolous 1y agoI got it for running AI models
- bigyabai 1y agoI apologize in advance.
- henrebotha 1y agoThe article claims T2Linux has "largely solved" the problem of Linux on T2 Macs. Is that true? I have a 2020 MBP with touch bar & 2 Thunderbolt ports. My reading of the T2Linux project sounded a lot more negative than that, but I'd love to be shown I'm wrong.
- WhyNotHugo 1y agoThere's a dedicated page listing the status of different hardware: https://wiki.t2linux.org/state/ https://wiki.t2linux.org/state/ Looks like keyboard, touchpad and webcam are not upstream. It's not clear to me if you need a custom kernel, or just out-of-tree drivers. Suspend, audio and graphics are "partially working".
- kachapopopow 1y agoHuh, when did I miss the point that computers became phone/tablets that should be replaced every few years?
- guappa 1y agoIf you were selling laptops you would think differently.
- esskay 1y agoNothings forcing you to replace them, they'll still work on Tahoe. Also 2020 is the last Intel models. Late 2025 is the Tahoe release, and then you get 3 years of updates, meaning a total of 8 years of software updates for that 2020 machine. Thats all pretty standard levels of software support, and again, it won't suddenly stop working in 2028.
- daveoc64 1y agoUnless you have the 2020 Intel MacBook Air, no Tahoe for you. So less than 5 years of OS updates.
- angulardragon03 1y agoYou’ll still get two more years of Sequoia updates.
- TiredOfLife 1y agoThat was always the case with Apple. What changed is that Microsoft also started to arbitrary cut off support. And you couldn't just install windows to continue using the device.
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- maguay 1y agoCurious if anyone here is using Luna Display full-time to turn an Intel iMac into a monitor for a MacBook or Mac Mini. How has it worked for you? Less arduous than gutting an iMac to turn it into a standalone monitor but seems highly likely the latency would feel annoying.
- MerlinDE 1y agoI have tried it and must say it just doesn’t work well enough. Too high latency, video calls are impossible and you regularly run into arbitrary issues. I ended up buying a standalone monitor again.
- mannyv 1y agoMy wife has a 5k iMac, and we're thinking of just using Airplay (you can share monitors via AirPlay now, I'm not sure when Apple added that). I tested it out the other day and it's relatively OK.
- daft_pink 1y agoReally hope this doesn’t mean that Rosetta 2 is going away.
- mrkpdl 1y agoRosetta 2 is being ‘phased out’ over multiple years, some coverage here: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/apple-details-the-end-of-intel-mac-support-and-a-phaseout-for-rosetta-2/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/apple-details-the-en...
- hoppp 1y agoThis mentality is why I dont buy apple products. At least the unsupported macs can use linux at some point, but then I prefer to have a linux machine from the start.
- arijun 1y agoWhat? By then the most recent intel mac will be what, 6 years old? And will continue to get security updates for the foreseeable future? Do you expect them to still be making new OS versions for PowerPC as well?
- hoppp 1y agoYes. Linux and some Bsd variants still have PowerPc builds. Check out NetBSD.
- jbs789 1y agoIf I were you I’d think of it as a trade-off between legacy support and being able to innovate. Sounds like you have some very particular views about priorities which may not be consistent with reality for businesses.
- hoppp 1y agoWhat is good for business is not necessarily good for the consumer. I will not care about a multi trillionaire company's bottom line. Projects like NetBSD are innovative because they work on all devices. While Apple hardware is innovative because its cutting edge, MacOS is mid at best.
- makeitdouble 1y agoI'd be with you if Apple didn't bake cloud related features into their OS. From memory, screen time management for a family member required an up to date device for instance. I also wonder if they can still be used for Apple's 2FA. More things can be done through the web interface than before, but it's still not web first, and not being able to push a button because your OS is 6 years old is pretty frustrating.
- dawnerd 1y agoWhat's awful is all those imacs that can't be used as external displays. They used to have target display mode but that went away a long time ago. Such a waste.
- ZeroTalent 1y agoYou can use an app like Duet or other apps like these.
- freehorse 1y agoYeah, the single reason i consider that buying an imac makes no sense. We have a bunch of older imacs lying around at work, it is such a waste not being able to use them as external monitors.
- neepi 1y agoActually you can use them as external displays but requires some hackery. See https://ohmypizza.com/2023/04/converting-a-5k-imac-into-an-external-5k-display https://ohmypizza.com/2023/04/converting-a-5k-imac-into-an-e... But yeah agree entirely there. When upgrading from my somewhat cranky old 5k iMac a while back, I decided I'd never buy another iMac. The 24" was out. So I bought a Studio Display and a mac mini. At least I can upgrade the computer separately, which has happened already (M2 mini -> M4 mini). I expect the Studio Display to last a long time as you can actually buy parts for it.
- rcarmo 1y agoI have one I’ve been keeping around for this. The panel is indeed amazing, although the bezel detracts a lot from it.
- mmcnl 1y agoVery strange indeed. So much for sustainability and environmental friendly.
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- flohofwoe 1y agoMaybe with this there's finally no need any longer to have those mile-wide 256 byte gaps between items in Metal uniform buffers :) (on iOS the alignment is just 16 bytes) Also hopefully all the special-case handling for 'managed resources' can be dropped (but I guess that would also imply no longer supporting any external non-Apple GPUs). I'm actually looking forward to a 3D-API that can fully focus on a single GPU architecture that's developed side-by-side with its 3D API - it will be a nice testing ground of what the future of 3D APIs could look like.
- grishka 1y ago> I'm actually looking forward to a 3D-API that can fully focus on a single GPU architecture that's developed side-by-side with its 3D API - it will be a nice testing ground of what the future of 3D APIs could look like. Aren't the graphics APIs on consoles that, more or less?
- flohofwoe 1y agoI haven't done console development for a long time, but while the console vendors use their own graphics APIs, the GPUs are (more of less) off-the-shelf parts from AMD or NVIDIA, while Apple completely controls both software and hardware side, so at least theoretically they have more flexibility to harmonize hardware and software.
- angst 1y ago- MacOS 26, also known as macOS Tahoe, will be the last version of the operating system to work on Macs powered by Intel Processors. - Tahoe-supporting Intel Macs will get full access to all the new features, and they'll still get security updates for the next three years. - By 2028, they'll be out of the Apple ecosystem. - Intel-powered Macs that will support Tahoe include the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, the 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro, the 2020 27-inch iMac and the 2019 Mac Pro.
- aldonius 1y ago> will get full access to all the new features Plenty of newer image processing and AI features are M-series only.
- rdsnsca 1y agoNot all features, they will have no Metal 4 support, source : https://developer.apple.com/metal/Metal-Feature-Set-Tables.pdf https://developer.apple.com/metal/Metal-Feature-Set-Tables.p...
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- Paianni 1y agoThat means people who bought an Intel-based Mac Pro in 2023 will only have gotten security updates for five years after purchase. Wow.
- joshstrange 1y agoAhh yes, the massive number of people who bought a _Mac Pro_ in _2023_…. The only people buying a Mac Pro in 2023 are people who are buying it because they specifically need Intel and they know that Intel on the way out, but they just still need it for something. If you purchased a Mac Pro in 2023 and didn’t realize this was happening you have no business buying a computer. No one in an Apple Store is gonna push you towards a Mac Pro, it’s a very niche product.
- yurishimo 1y agoDo they even advertise them in retail locations now? Last time I was in an Apple Store, all I saw was current hardware. I think they can only be bought online. I went to the Apple.com "find your mac" tool and even knowing what I wanted to get back, I couldn't even convince it to recommend a Mac Pro. https://www.apple.com/mac/best-mac/ https://www.apple.com/mac/best-mac/
- philistine 1y agoIt is literally impossible to get a Mac Pro as a recommandation from Apple. They know the Mac Pro has devolved into a PCIe expansion board accessory with a Mac Studio already attached. They market it accordingly.
- ksec 1y agoAdding Another note to myself. My Early 2015 Intel MacBook Pro has a GB6 Single Core of 974, and Multi Core 1931. An Early 2025 M4 MacBook Air has a GB6 Single Core of 3700, and Multi Core 14600. That is 3.7x faster at single core and ~7.5x faster in Multi Core over the span of 10 years. May be M5 is even faster. On GPU Metal MBP 2015 is roughly ~5500 while 2025 M4 is roughly 55000. So 10x. Edit: The M4 Pro has a TDP of 32W and PL2 of 40W. So not a very good comparison to Max 28W of Intel Core i5-5257U. But still adding it here. M4 Pro GB6 3840, Multi Core 20400. Metal 105814.
- aurareturn 1y agoSince you were using a MacBook Pro, you probably want to compare the Intel chip to an M4 Pro or M4 Max.
- normie3000 1y agoYour 2015 M4 Air must have been an early batch.
- adastra22 1y agoWhat does this mean?
- sgerenser 1y agoIt’s a joke, 2015 is 10 years before the M4 Air was released
- normie3000 1y agoGP initially said they had a 2015 M4 MacBook Air. It looks like they have now corrected the year to 2025.
- ChrisArchitect 1y agoSome more earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44230509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44230509
- punnerud 1y agoWhy the end of Hackintosh? Doesn’t Windows support ARM, so there should be machines that can support newer versions of MacOS…
- ghusto 1y agoThe marketing bullshit preceding the statement "and so, you can go fuck yourselves because we're dropping support for your laptop" is infuriating.