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macOS 27 won’t be supporting Intel anymore

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11–20 of 108 posts

Re: macOS 27 won’t be supporting Intel anymore

#11
post #4

I hope they keep around the underpinnings for Rosetta 2 (without the macOS parts) just to keep supporting Intel virtualization for things like Docker. Heck then anyone who really needs to run some old Intel app can run a virtualized older version of macOS. But I wonder if they're eager to drop support for the Intel TSO memory model from their CPUs.

Same here. Would be very sad to lose Wine capabilities as well, and presumably these have minimal macOS dependencies.

Re: macOS 27 won’t be supporting Intel anymore

#12

Bad headline. This tweet attempts to explain why Rosetta 2 will no longer work. Which is because the OS no longer supports the Intel platform. That does not explain why the OS does not support the Intel platform.

Because Apple is the King of Deprecations. And they get away with it.

Re: macOS 27 won’t be supporting Intel anymore

#13

Bad headline. This tweet attempts to explain why Rosetta 2 will no longer work. Which is because the OS no longer supports the Intel platform. That does not explain why the OS does not support the Intel platform.

But it does?

> Rosetta 2 requires almost the entire OS to have Intel support.

The implication here being that (almost) the entire OS having Intel support is not trivial.

Re: macOS 27 won’t be supporting Intel anymore

#14
Wait, so.. how are we supposed to test Intel builds of our macOS apps from now on?

I get it that macOS has to evolve, but that doesn't mean all apps have to drop Intel support at the same time.

On hardware-level apps like my Lunar app I have plenty #if arch(arm64) because some features like reading the brightness nits or reading ambient light is different or completely missing based on the architecture. I need to test the UI differences based on what features are available.

I don't see it viable to stay on macOS 26 for this, especially if we're going to see breaking changes again with the display and window server subsystem like we did with Tahoe. M5 support for Gamma table changes is still broken after so many months [0]

[0] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/819331#819331021

Re: macOS 27 won’t be supporting Intel anymore

#15
I'm curious what options that leaves for docker. I assume the pattern of building/running linux/amd64 containers on MacOS is pretty widespread.

Edit: "Apple says that it will continue to support older, unmaintained gaming titles with Rosetta along with software running Intel binaries in Linux VMs beyond macOS 27 . There could also be future security fixes." - https://www.macrumors.com/2026/02/16/macos-tahoe-26-4-rosett...

No Apple citation shown for that, though seems plausible.

Re: macOS 27 won’t be supporting Intel anymore

#16
post #14

Wait, so.. how are we supposed to test Intel builds of our macOS apps from now on? I get it that macOS has to evolve, but that doesn't mean all apps have to drop Intel support at the same time. On hardware-level apps like my Lunar app I have plenty #if arch(arm64) because some features like reading the brightness nits or reading ambient light is different or completely missing based on the architecture. I need to tes…

Keep an Intel Mac around?

Re: macOS 27 won’t be supporting Intel anymore

#17

Bad headline. This tweet attempts to explain why Rosetta 2 will no longer work. Which is because the OS no longer supports the Intel platform. That does not explain why the OS does not support the Intel platform.

Because it costs them money to maintain it, and they'll make more money when people upgrade to M series?

In all seriousness, it's a little lame. Consider that the Intel Mac Pro (2019 model) was still selling in 2023! That's not that long ago, and those were their highest end machines in terms of memory capacity. The "new" Mac Pro has since been discontinued...

Re: macOS 27 won’t be supporting Intel anymore

#18
post #15

I'm curious what options that leaves for docker. I assume the pattern of building/running linux/amd64 containers on MacOS is pretty widespread. Edit: "Apple says that it will continue to support older, unmaintained gaming titles with Rosetta along with software running Intel binaries in Linux VMs beyond macOS 27 . There could also be future security fixes." - https://www.macrumors.com/2026/02/16/macos-tahoe-26-4-rose…

[deleted]

Re: macOS 27 won’t be supporting Intel anymore

#19

I bet it must feel good for the macOS engineers to remove the intel support. Probably much easier to do development for the OS as well

As a consumer, I’d like to see the end of “universal” builds for various apps. It made sense for a while but downloading and installing ~60% larger bins just doesn’t make sense 6 years later.

Re: macOS 27 won’t be supporting Intel anymore

#20
post #14

Wait, so.. how are we supposed to test Intel builds of our macOS apps from now on? I get it that macOS has to evolve, but that doesn't mean all apps have to drop Intel support at the same time. On hardware-level apps like my Lunar app I have plenty #if arch(arm64) because some features like reading the brightness nits or reading ambient light is different or completely missing based on the architecture. I need to tes…

Keep a macOS 26 machine around for testing. All Intel Macs will be stuck on 26 as well, so testing under 26 is probably best anyway.
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