What'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.
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 · 6m ago
I have one I’ve been keeping around for this. The panel is indeed amazing, although the bezel detracts a lot from it.
freehorse · 1h ago
Yeah, 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.
angst · 1h 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.
kombine · 3h ago
Re 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.
rmi_ · 2h 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 · 2h 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 · 2h 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 · 1h ago
Would you be fine with your family running a vulnerable, insecure machine for everything, including communication with you?
fsflover · 39m 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 · 1h ago
They also support updating Safari for 2 versions back of macOS.
apples_oranges · 2h ago
Indeed. 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 · 2h ago
But what makes it obsolete if this is what you use it for?
kennywinker · 2h ago
1. 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.
thisislife2 · 2h ago
It's the only thing he can use it for because of planned obsolescence.
nsonha · 2h ago
When I still had my iPad 2 a few year back, I could not find any app that still run on it except for a few games for my cat. After that it became his iPad.
ricardobeat · 1h ago
iPad 2 was released in 2011, "a few years back" is an entire decade. It received its last OS update in 2019, eight years later, which is not bad at all. Picture trying to use a PC from 1994 in the year 2008.
Symbiote · 59m ago
Most other devices can be used until they wear out, or for longer if it's reasonable to replace worn parts.
This should be possible with computers too.
ricardobeat · 50m ago
What are "most other devices"? I can't think of any electronics I own that are still usable after 10-15 years besides Apple hardware.
Your average PC build will be completely outdated after ~5 years, suffer some type of hardware failure, or have nearly all of it's software (BIOS, OS, drivers) dead and unsupported by then. It is then only usable by enthusiasts / developers, and ends up in a landfill otherwise.
fragmede · 3m ago
Game consoles. People still game on the Playstation 4, which first came out in 2013.
fsflover · 46m ago
My relatives are still using a more than 15-year-old laptop with Debian just fine. My phone (Librem 15) will be receiving updates for its lifetime.
cubefox · 1h ago
A cat with its own iPad to play games on. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
makeitdouble · 20m ago
FWIW you can pay Microsoft to keep getting support for Windows 10, and they also have LTS programs.
But it costs a lot, and non corporate users will probably not even know about those nor want to pay that price.
pjmlp · 37m ago
How else could they make their shareholders happy in the usual MBA style exponential growth that is expected from public companies at the stock exchange?
ricardobeat · 1h ago
The last of these devices were sold in 2020. Eight years of full support is quite good (longest in the industry?), and usually you can keep using them for a good 2-3 years more, if you don't need the latest apps.
monegator · 49m ago
I have Debian Trixie on my Mid 2012, and it's much more responsive, lightweight, and easy on battery than OSX 10.14 (which i had been using until last year.)
As long as we can install linux on it, they can drop support. I don't care a single bit
- Not being able to install debian on M3/M4 has been the only thing that keeps me from retiring that machine, I'd rather keep changing broken components and batteries, because even though moving away from x86 is the right thing to do from an efficiency point of view, we don't have an open standard between manufacturers so their ARM chip, and every other ARM chip, are effectively a proprietary architecture in which the customer ultimately lose because he has no control on its own hardware
ffsm8 · 56m ago
That's false, 2020 was the last year one was introduced - not phased out
Some resellers still have them in inventory, at least I came upon one a few weeks ago.
That makes it a 3 yrs EOL situation. Pretty terrible considering the prices of these devices.
At least the notorious Chromebooks were sold super cheaply (notorious for their non-existent update policies) - not the case here
They were also still being sold by Apple the last time I bought a MacBook pro, which was around 2022 iirc
TiredOfLife · 1h ago
The funny thing is that Microsoft has versions of 10 and 11 (with the same hardware requirements as windows 10, no tpm and so on) officially supported till 2032.
eddythompson80 · 2h ago
I agree. 10 years for windows 10 and 6 years for the 2019 Macbooks are not very close, and you have to draw the line somewhere, but I’ll catch in on the outrage
perching_aix · 1h ago
This is a bit misleading.
They haven't released a new Intel-based product / product-line since August 2020, and haven't shipped any new units of the same criteria since June 2023.
While new versions of macOS will not be available to them, macOS Tahoe will almost certainly EOL in Fall 2028. That means their Intel-based devices will have a lifetime anywhere from 5 to 8 years at worst, depending on your time of purchase.
Maybe I'm just used to this at this point, but I think this is pretty reasonable.
Mashimo · 2h ago
10 years of update for an OS is not even that bad, the problem is that there is perfectly working hardware out there that will not work with windows 11. (Unless TPU2.0 is circumvented)
poizan42 · 1h ago
I don't have any Intel MacBook to test it out on, but is Intel PTT permanently disabled on them? Almost all Intel CPUs from somewhere in 2014 and later has TPM 2.0 support as far as I'm aware.
At what point do you think this becomes ridiculous? Like are we angry they're not still supporting PowerPC? Would three more years have made a difference to you? 5 more? 10 more? What's the magical number would have made you happy here?
vladvasiliu · 1h ago
Maybe a given number of years isn't what the yardstick should be, but rather whether the hardware can still be reasonably used.
For example, I have a 3rd gen Intel Xeon that runs circles around regular newish processors in brute processing force (think compiling and such). Yet, MS doesn't officially support it anymore with win11. I know you can circumvent the TPM requirement, which I do, so I'm still using it, but this just shows how arbitrary this limit is.
In Apple's case, at least they can say it's a different architecture and whatnot.
myaccountonhn · 1h ago
I think when you can't/won't anymore, make it open the hardware so enthusiasts can.
Netbsd manages to support PowerPC somehow... So yeah maybe they still should. They certainly have the money to do so.
ricardobeat · 1h ago
Intel macs can run Windows on them (not that it would help) or Linux; a distro like Mint should have good support for most of the hardware, it actually runs better on older models. There is nothing Apple needs to do.
petesergeant · 1h ago
Isn't Linux on Intel Macs largely a solved problem at this point?
fsflover · 1h ago
The moment they stop support they should release all documentation for the hardware and let enthusiasts reuse it. Planned obsolescence and electronic waste could be avoided.
Nullabillity · 1h ago
You're talking about a trillion dollar company, they could easily afford to keep going indefinitely.
forrestthewoods · 1h ago
That’s not how it works. The cost to maintaining support for old hardware isn’t merely money for more engineers. It’s the opportunity cost of slowing down forward progress for new things.
Intel laptops are sooooo slow. So extremely painfully slow. They’re quite bad. I’m largely a windows users, but my god old Intel laptops are bloody awful. Leaving behind old and bad things isn’t bad.
Besides, an older Intel MacBook will continue to work in its current form. It doesn’t need another 10 years of updates.
eviks · 20m ago
> opportunity cost of slowing down forward progress for new things.
Which ones and how?
kev009 · 1h ago
They really aren't slow, but the performance and battery life is greatly eclipsed by Apple ARM. I could live pretty comfortably on a Lenovo P51 (something like a 2017 MBP) if I had to under Linux and FreeBSD. Also a not negligible amount of performance was lost by the security gaffes and microcode and OS mitigations for them.
ksec · 3h ago
At 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 · 3h ago
I 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 · 3h ago
Yeah, I thought the 2016-2019 keyboards were absolute ass, but they fixed it with from the M1 laptops onwards.
AzN1337c0d3r · 1h ago
Actually, the keyboard mechanism that the M1 MacBook Pros got was from the 2019 16-inch Intel MacBook Pro (which was the first 16-inch MacBook Pro).
So the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro and the 2020 13-inch MacBook Pros got non-butterfly keyboards.
graftak · 1h ago
they improved over the butterfly keyboards of that era but the M1 and beyond keyboard are still significantly worse than before 2016. I recently used an older MacBook pro and the difference was quite staggering.
Toutouxc · 1h ago
I dunno, I went from 2013 Pro to 2020 Air to 2024 Pro, I also use the previous Magic Keyboard (sans TouchID) and they all feel similar. The Magic Keyboard feels a lot like the 2024 Pro, the Air has less travel and has a sharper click and the old Pro has the most travel and is the mushiest. But they all feel like members of the same family, and are all very nice keyboards.
ksec · 57m ago
This is interesting. They all felt very different to me.
This actually reminded me a study 40% of people can't tell the difference between Coca Cola and Pepsi. And then some 30% can taste the difference but can't tell which is which, 10% can tell but don't have preference.
I guess I am in the extreme minority. You could blindfold me and I could tell you by typing which keyboard is which. And this is not to brag but I much rather I don't have these high standard. Life would be a lot happier.
gattilorenz · 5m ago
Tbh the M1 keyboard seems better than my 2012 MBP (and well, better than that clusterfuck or 1st gen butterfly design, but that ain’t saying much anyway).
Maybe it’s age, but the older one feels mushy
flomo · 1h ago
The 2016 to? keyboard was actually defective. (But Apple had a great silent warranty on it, which is what you really are paying for.) But I actually really liked the feel otherwise.
winrid · 2h ago
Really? 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 · 2h ago
I 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.
flomo · 1h ago
As a former Model M user (and many thinkpads), it's called 'touch typing' and you have to adjust. Nobody is selling a 'brick' laptop in current year.
ksec · 54m ago
The new MBP is indeed significant departure from Butterfly. But the new scissors it is still not back to old scissors key travel. And only works well with touch typist.
If I remember correctly the current Thinkpad should have the same key travel distance as my MBP / old scissors.
But new scissors definitely have better key stability, something carried forward from butterfly ( although not as good as butterfly ). And for people who have preference with key stability it is a better choice.
dontlaugh · 1h ago
They’re much better, for sure. They’re even pretty good.
But the 2015 keyboards are still superior.
sanswork · 2h ago
I have an m1 mbp and I have a 2015 sitting around somewhere and I can't really tell the different between to two. I skipped over the butterfly generation though.
The performance improvement on the m1+ just make it a no brainer for me though even if I hated the keyboard I'd carry around an external one just for the extra power.
noduerme · 2h ago
I'm surprised... what encouraged you to update MacOS? I'm on the first M1 Macbook from 2020 and have not allowed a single OS update. The first thing I do with a mac is use Little Snitch to block all apple IP addresses, and delete all their built in apps. I still have an Air from 2015 and one from 2009, a Titanium from 2004 and a chunky old Powerbook 3400 from the 1990s that all run fine. One or two a decade.
But I never update the OS because I don't want to deal with anything that might break my environment.
omnimus · 2h ago
What might break your envinroment is malware instead.
noduerme · 1h ago
not if you don't download anything you don't trust, and know about every inbound and outbound connection.
sanswork · 1h ago
I'm impressed at the way you've managed to extend the life of your hardware by the simple trick of not using it.
newsclues · 1h ago
Assuming all updates break everything is just as dumb as assuming all updates never break anything
henrebotha · 3h ago
The 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.
Paianni · 16m ago
That means people who bought an Intel-based Mac Pro in 2023 will only have gotten security updates for five years after purchase. Wow.
flohofwoe · 1h ago
Maybe 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.
eviks · 3h 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 · 2h ago
That second line is about Windows 10.
rock_artist · 3h ago
The 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.
izacus · 1h ago
> 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.
Most of the games I have from Steam/GoG on my M1 Mac are running through Rosetta2 ... and that probably won't change in the future.
It seems like dropping Rosetta2 is yet another way for Apple to murder their own relevancy for any kind of gaming... despite ok hardware.
risho · 3h ago
seems 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 · 3h ago
I 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 · 3h ago
Rosetta is also very useful for running x86 Linux containers for dev workflows. Hopefully that will continue to be supported.
guappa · 2h ago
It's apple…
matthewmacleod · 2h ago
Who literally yesterday launched a container framework and tool.
rock_artist · 17m ago
> 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
I guess Apple Rosetta support will be a mix of interests.
1. Apple currently has interest in getting games on their platform. They even made a debugger tool running on Windows so a game dev could profile/debug from his Windows machine :)
2. Unless Apple will have enough power (meaning they will have leverage over games devs), they won't be able to decide when they completely drop Rosetta2.
3. Most likely that companies with personal connections with key people at Apple would take part in when/if the pull the plug on Rosetta2. I guess big software companies might be able to convince Apple is they'll decide to remove it prematurely.
nottorp · 3h ago
Hmm sounds to me like Wine will die then, since it's an x86 application relying on Rosetta to run?
Apple killing gaming on their platform again, like they did with the 32->64 bit transition...
No, "new" ports to arm of 5 year old games sold at full price as app store exclusives don't count...
steelbrain · 2h ago
The “gaming focused functionality” mentioned in the parent post is probably referring to Game Porting Toolkit, which builds on top of wine. So no, It doesnt seen like Wine will die just yet
nottorp · 2h ago
"Rosetta will be pared back and will only be available to a limited subset of apps—specifically, older games that rely on Intel-specific libraries but are no longer being actively maintained by their developers. "
Says the Ars Technica article about this topic.
Doesn't sound like Wine at all to me...
kombine · 2h ago
> Intel-based Macs will continue receiving security updates for 3 years following macOS Tahoe
This is is great to hear, but even 3 years are probably not enough. 2020-made computers should be used 5+ years more.
conradev · 3h ago
Which version of Xcode drops the last Intel SDK as a deployment target?
la_oveja · 1h ago
if i have a 2019 imac (coffee lake) for ios mobile development, how long will i be able to use it for that purpose? i am going to face xcode limitations? will i be able to still push to the app store in the years to come?
rock_artist · 11m ago
> if i have a 2019 imac (coffee lake) for ios mobile development, how long will i be able to use it for that purpose? i am going to face xcode limitations? will i be able to still push to the app store in the years to come?
Based on appstore accepting only last {#}os SDK (not deployment target).
Usually Xcode (and Safari) gets support for the previous OS. meaning,
Xcode 26 min macOS is Sequoia 15.x.
So, Xcode 27 min macOS will be macOS 26.
That gives about 2.5 years for Intel Macs to allow complete AppStore integration.
I guess https://github.com/xtool-org/xtool might become more dominant. iiuc, it also valid to use it on "a Mac" even if it was phased out :)
hoppp · 2h ago
This 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.
jeanlucas · 1h ago
What do you buy then? I'm yet to know a brand that offers that long support
hoppp · 1h ago
My work machine is from tuxedo computers. They sell spare parts too. I just changed my battery, all I needed was a screwdriver.
No comments yet
arijun · 1h ago
What? 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?
makeitdouble · 12m ago
I'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.
hoppp · 1h ago
Yes. Linux and some Bsd variants still have PowerPc builds.
Check out NetBSD.
jbs789 · 1h ago
If 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 · 48m ago
What 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.
Springtime · 3h ago
Which also marks the end of being able to run non-Arm based Windows on Macs natively.
mrkstu · 3h ago
When you have ARM Windows available that can run Intel Windows software, I don't think that really matters.
tonyedgecombe · 2h ago
Isn’t bootcamp there for legacy Windows apps rather than stuff compiled for ARM?
leakycap · 5h ago
I appreciate them giving this kind of heads up; I'll be able to buy even cheaper used Intel machines much sooner.
guappa · 2h ago
Why would you want that? Not like they work especially well with linux.
UberFly · 2h ago
They work great with Linux.
guappa · 38m ago
No they don't… does the touchbar even work at all?
maguay · 2h ago
Curious 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 · 2h ago
I 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.
netfortius · 3h ago
It'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 · 3h ago
Intel != x86_64. Or, at least, they cannot if they hope to survive.
daft_pink · 2h ago
Really hope this doesn’t mean that Rosetta 2 is going away.
I 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.
kristopolous · 2h ago
They're introductory m4 is often< $500.
I'm generally not a fan but hell, that's peanuts
Got mine for $460
eviks · 2h ago
Is Windows arm also not suitable?
mdp2021 · 5h ago
Original title:
# The Exit Strategy // After two decades, Apple has announced its final version of MacOS for Intel. Guess that means Hackintoshing is done, too
kachapopopow · 2h ago
Huh, when did I miss the point that computers became phone/tablets that should be replaced every few years?
esskay · 2h ago
Nothings 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.
guappa · 2h ago
If you were selling laptops you would think differently.
TiredOfLife · 1h ago
That 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.
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.
- 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.
That still leaves a perfectly adequate machine for most common uses.
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.
This should be possible with computers too.
Your average PC build will be completely outdated after ~5 years, suffer some type of hardware failure, or have nearly all of it's software (BIOS, OS, drivers) dead and unsupported by then. It is then only usable by enthusiasts / developers, and ends up in a landfill otherwise.
But it costs a lot, and non corporate users will probably not even know about those nor want to pay that price.
As long as we can install linux on it, they can drop support. I don't care a single bit
- Not being able to install debian on M3/M4 has been the only thing that keeps me from retiring that machine, I'd rather keep changing broken components and batteries, because even though moving away from x86 is the right thing to do from an efficiency point of view, we don't have an open standard between manufacturers so their ARM chip, and every other ARM chip, are effectively a proprietary architecture in which the customer ultimately lose because he has no control on its own hardware
Some resellers still have them in inventory, at least I came upon one a few weeks ago.
That makes it a 3 yrs EOL situation. Pretty terrible considering the prices of these devices.
At least the notorious Chromebooks were sold super cheaply (notorious for their non-existent update policies) - not the case here
They were also still being sold by Apple the last time I bought a MacBook pro, which was around 2022 iirc
They haven't released a new Intel-based product / product-line since August 2020, and haven't shipped any new units of the same criteria since June 2023.
While new versions of macOS will not be available to them, macOS Tahoe will almost certainly EOL in Fall 2028. That means their Intel-based devices will have a lifetime anywhere from 5 to 8 years at worst, depending on your time of purchase.
Maybe I'm just used to this at this point, but I think this is pretty reasonable.
At what point do you think this becomes ridiculous? Like are we angry they're not still supporting PowerPC? Would three more years have made a difference to you? 5 more? 10 more? What's the magical number would have made you happy here?
For example, I have a 3rd gen Intel Xeon that runs circles around regular newish processors in brute processing force (think compiling and such). Yet, MS doesn't officially support it anymore with win11. I know you can circumvent the TPM requirement, which I do, so I'm still using it, but this just shows how arbitrary this limit is.
In Apple's case, at least they can say it's a different architecture and whatnot.
Netbsd manages to support PowerPC somehow... So yeah maybe they still should. They certainly have the money to do so.
Intel laptops are sooooo slow. So extremely painfully slow. They’re quite bad. I’m largely a windows users, but my god old Intel laptops are bloody awful. Leaving behind old and bad things isn’t bad.
Besides, an older Intel MacBook will continue to work in its current form. It doesn’t need another 10 years of updates.
Which ones and how?
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.
That said, keyboards are personal preference, so I wish you luck in finding a good replacement. I also quite enjoy current ThinkPads.
So the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro and the 2020 13-inch MacBook Pros got non-butterfly keyboards.
This actually reminded me a study 40% of people can't tell the difference between Coca Cola and Pepsi. And then some 30% can taste the difference but can't tell which is which, 10% can tell but don't have preference.
I guess I am in the extreme minority. You could blindfold me and I could tell you by typing which keyboard is which. And this is not to brag but I much rather I don't have these high standard. Life would be a lot happier.
Maybe it’s age, but the older one feels mushy
If I remember correctly the current Thinkpad should have the same key travel distance as my MBP / old scissors.
But new scissors definitely have better key stability, something carried forward from butterfly ( although not as good as butterfly ). And for people who have preference with key stability it is a better choice.
But the 2015 keyboards are still superior.
The performance improvement on the m1+ just make it a no brainer for me though even if I hated the keyboard I'd carry around an external one just for the extra power.
But I never update the OS because I don't want to deal with anything that might break my environment.
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.
> 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
- 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.
Most of the games I have from Steam/GoG on my M1 Mac are running through Rosetta2 ... and that probably won't change in the future.
It seems like dropping Rosetta2 is yet another way for Apple to murder their own relevancy for any kind of gaming... despite ok hardware.
• 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
I guess Apple Rosetta support will be a mix of interests.
1. Apple currently has interest in getting games on their platform. They even made a debugger tool running on Windows so a game dev could profile/debug from his Windows machine :)
2. Unless Apple will have enough power (meaning they will have leverage over games devs), they won't be able to decide when they completely drop Rosetta2.
3. Most likely that companies with personal connections with key people at Apple would take part in when/if the pull the plug on Rosetta2. I guess big software companies might be able to convince Apple is they'll decide to remove it prematurely.
Apple killing gaming on their platform again, like they did with the 32->64 bit transition...
No, "new" ports to arm of 5 year old games sold at full price as app store exclusives don't count...
Says the Ars Technica article about this topic.
Doesn't sound like Wine at all to me...
This is is great to hear, but even 3 years are probably not enough. 2020-made computers should be used 5+ years more.
Based on appstore accepting only last {#}os SDK (not deployment target). Usually Xcode (and Safari) gets support for the previous OS. meaning,
Xcode 26 min macOS is Sequoia 15.x.
So, Xcode 27 min macOS will be macOS 26.
That gives about 2.5 years for Intel Macs to allow complete AppStore integration.
I guess https://github.com/xtool-org/xtool might become more dominant. iiuc, it also valid to use it on "a Mac" even if it was phased out :)
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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.
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.
Less arduous than gutting an iMac to turn it into a standalone monitor but seems highly likely the latency would feel annoying.
() I’m aware of Asahi Linux, but that is not what I run.
I'm generally not a fan but hell, that's peanuts
Got mine for $460
# The Exit Strategy // After two decades, Apple has announced its final version of MacOS for Intel. Guess that means Hackintoshing is done, too
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.