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While Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 completely, Apple is just stopping feature upgrades. Apple usually supports old OS versions for years to come,

by rmi_ 1y ago

While Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 completely, Apple is just stopping feature upgrades. Apple usually supports old OS versions for years to come, especially when it's the only supported version for a lot of devices. So no, Intel Macs don't need to be retired.

concinds 1y ago
Only for security vulnerabilities that "Apple is aware may have been actively exploited". And almost never for any bug fixes (and sadly, Apple now tends to push off bug fixes to the next major release/"n+1" rather than fix bugs in the major version in which they were introduced).
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > Only for security vulnerabilities that "Apple is aware may have been actively exploited" That still leaves a perfectly adequate machine for most common uses.
  - fsflover 1y ago
    Would you be fine with your family running a vulnerable, insecure machine for everything, including communication with you?
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - fsflover 1y ago
      I don't understand why I'm downvoted. I don't think it's acceptable to keep a machine with known vulnerabilities "not yet actively exploited" for "most common uses". The defense of Apple here goes too far.
- jurmous 1y ago
  They also support updating Safari for 2 versions back of macOS.
rollcat 1y ago
It's surprising enough that you can still get a few things done with a 2002 PowerBook G4: <https://www.rollc.at/posts/2024-07-02-tibook/ https://www.rollc.at/posts/2024-07-02-tibook/> The most painful parts are (1) it's a bit hot and loud under load; (2) you need to patch modern software like git, likely with little hope to upstream; (3) waiting hours for those "simple" things to compile - which, in the end, tells us something important about what we'd consider "simple" nowadays. For both retro and previous-generation hardware, security is the most important concern. Patches for PowerPC kept coming until 2011 or so (that's almost 10 years after that particular machine was released). I'd expect the Intel Macs to keep getting official patches until 2030, and in the meantime I wouldn't be surprised to find community efforts to extend that. "Sorbet Leopard" was a thing for PPC Macs, the Hackintosh community is much stronger than back then.
- philistine 1y ago
  > the Hackintosh community is much stronger than back then Yeah but they'll be stuck on macOS 26. That's effectively the planned end of that community, they're not interested in running old versions of macOS on PCs.
  - rickdeckard 1y ago
    I'm curious how much of the Hackintosh community can even be upgraded to macOS 26. With Apple reducing the supported models so drastically [0], the OS may also no longer support most of those older hardware-components anymore. [0] https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/09/macos-tahoe-compatible-macs/ https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/09/macos-tahoe-compatible-...
  - rollcat 1y ago
    People are patching newer macOS's to run on older HW (like OpenCore), running older OS's on PCs as they see fit, all Macs allow downgrading (and 10.15 runs on the final 2019 models). I speculate that the community will settle around some version that strikes a decent balance between stability, features, and ease of patching.
    - 1y ago

by rmi_ 1y ago

concinds 1y ago

Only for security vulnerabilities that "Apple is aware may have been actively exploited". And almost never for any bug fixes (and sadly, Apple now tends to push off bug fixes to the next major release/"n+1" rather than fix bugs in the major version in which they were introduced).

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> Only for security vulnerabilities that "Apple is aware may have been actively exploited" That still leaves a perfectly adequate machine for most common uses.
- fsflover 1y ago
  Would you be fine with your family running a vulnerable, insecure machine for everything, including communication with you?
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - fsflover 1y ago
    I don't understand why I'm downvoted. I don't think it's acceptable to keep a machine with known vulnerabilities "not yet actively exploited" for "most common uses". The defense of Apple here goes too far.
jurmous 1y ago
They also support updating Safari for 2 versions back of macOS.

rollcat 1y ago

It's surprising enough that you can still get a few things done with a 2002 PowerBook G4: <https://www.rollc.at/posts/2024-07-02-tibook/ https://www.rollc.at/posts/2024-07-02-tibook/> The most painful parts are (1) it's a bit hot and loud under load; (2) you need to patch modern software like git, likely with little hope to upstream; (3) waiting hours for those "simple" things to compile - which, in the end, tells us something important about what we'd consider "simple" nowadays. For both retro and previous-generation hardware, security is the most important concern. Patches for PowerPC kept coming until 2011 or so (that's almost 10 years after that particular machine was released). I'd expect the Intel Macs to keep getting official patches until 2030, and in the meantime I wouldn't be surprised to find community efforts to extend that. "Sorbet Leopard" was a thing for PPC Macs, the Hackintosh community is much stronger than back then.

philistine 1y ago
> the Hackintosh community is much stronger than back then Yeah but they'll be stuck on macOS 26. That's effectively the planned end of that community, they're not interested in running old versions of macOS on PCs.
- rickdeckard 1y ago
  I'm curious how much of the Hackintosh community can even be upgraded to macOS 26. With Apple reducing the supported models so drastically [0], the OS may also no longer support most of those older hardware-components anymore. [0] https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/09/macos-tahoe-compatible-macs/ https://www.macrumors.com/2025/06/09/macos-tahoe-compatible-...
- rollcat 1y ago
  People are patching newer macOS's to run on older HW (like OpenCore), running older OS's on PCs as they see fit, all Macs allow downgrading (and 10.15 runs on the final 2019 models). I speculate that the community will settle around some version that strikes a decent balance between stability, features, and ease of patching.
  - 1y ago