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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.

> 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?

I 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.

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.

There's a dedicated page listing the status of different hardware: 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".

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.

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

Rosetta is also very useful for running x86 Linux containers for dev workflows. Hopefully that will continue to be supported.

It's apple…

Who literally yesterday launched a container framework and tool.

...that calls out its own compatibility with Rosetta 2.

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...

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

"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...

> 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.

Three years after Tahoe would be Sept 2029, thats two years past their hardware support (which goes to limited support at 5 and ends at 7)

Which version of Xcode drops the last Intel SDK as a deployment target?

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?

> 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 :)

> 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.

> 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.

This.

Apple in the past couple of years was all like, "oh look, gaming on macOS is good now".

I can run a 1995 game OOB on my Windows laptop in 2025.

My question is: on macOS, what's the actual market for casual games, like most of what's on Apple Arcade - especially against iOS? What's the market for the few AAA titles they promote - vs Windows?

People want their existing libraries. With Arm64 in the way, developers who up until now only had to target x86, will care even less. Factorio only cared because they already had a Switch port underway: <https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-371>

Dropping Rosetta2 will be the final nail in the coffin. If Apple did actually care about games, they would strike a deal with Codeweavers to integrate Crossover directly with the system.

Maybe I'll finally get a proper Windows gaming machine.

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.

> When will they drop Rosetta2?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44238145

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.

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.

Yeah, I thought the 2016-2019 keyboards were absolute ass, but they fixed it with from the M1 laptops onwards.

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.

The early 2020 MacBook Air also had scissor switches. (Yeah, they released an overheating Intel model in 2020 just before the M1 Air came out.)

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.

>(But Apple had a great silent warranty on it, which is what you really are paying for.)

After we fought very hard for it. Otherwise it cost you $300 or something just for keyboard replacement.

But yes the certain aspect of "feel" for butterfly was great. I really like its key stability. I often wonder if it wasn't so thin, had the typing distance of 1.3mm would reliability drastically increase and feels a lot better.

> After we fought very hard for it.

Interesting. I don't think there even was a 'keyboard replacement', because it was glued onto the mainboard. In any case, I just went into show them the sticky keyboard and got 50% of a new laptop back. Twice! Too bad you had to argue. (I think the defect wasn't just the keyboard but maybe the cooling or even the firmware.)

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.

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.

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.

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

To me 2011 has slightly more key travel than 2015, but 2015 and M1+ seem to have about same keytravel but M1 is a lot "crisper". M1+ keyboard seems to uniformly actuate wherever you press it, whereas the shallower keycaps of 2015 keyboard mean that it feels different when you push it from corner vs center.

And I have just realise the 2020 Air is actually on the new scissors rather than butterfly.

So practically speaking you went from old scissors to new scissors.

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...)

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.

Interesting. I mean, it's still way less force than any average mechanical keyboard?

Modern Apple Scissor keyboards have a 64gf tactile force [1], that's pretty much in regular tactile switch territory. The travel is very short though.

[1] https://www.rtings.com/keyboard/reviews/apple/magic-keyboard...

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.

the x1 carbon isn't a brick lol

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.

They’re much better, for sure. They’re even pretty good.

But the 2015 keyboards are still superior.

Digression here but, man, Apple knows how to engineer a laptop that will keep on ticking. Every other laptop I've had is depricated in 2 years and virtually worthless by 5. My 2010 MBP isn't even remotely my daily driver but it is still kicking around. Only issue is a dead ram port (and there are some fixes for that I haven't attempted yet).

I think this is because Apple doesn't sell cheap laptops, the cheapest you can buy is the $1000 Macbook Air. If you spend your $1000 on something like a Lenovo Thinkpad or Dell Latitude, it'll also last for over 10 years of active usage. I have a 15 year old Thinkpad X201 that still works fine.

Nah, this is common for laptops or PCs in general.

I have a mid 2015 Macbook Pro 15", also with OpenCore. Running just fine. No issues with Safari and Cloudflake. Only thing is the battery was mostly dead. I replaced it with a iFixit diy battery kit, but that one died completely after just 2 years (out of warranty of course). Probably the controller board, as the cells were nowhere near empty. Now I have the choice to replace it with a cheap battery from unknown source or yet another iFixit one which costs almost the price of this laptop second hand. But I have lost trust in this iFixit product as others seem to have the same problem. Just sucks to have perfectly fine hardware locked behind another expensive battery repair.

>No issues with Safari and Cloudflake

How do you get pass [Verify you are human by completing the action below] on site like https://www.phoronix.com. ?

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.

I bought an early 2015 MBP (my favorite design) when the 2016 models where announced and waited until the M1 to buy a new one again, and the keyboard is good again.

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.

What might break your envinroment is malware instead.

not if you don't download anything you don't trust, and know about every inbound and outbound connection.

I'm impressed at the way you've managed to extend the life of your hardware by the simple trick of not using it.

Funny. But is it somehow impossible to use a computer without downloading untrusted files?

Everything you didn't create is untrusted.

It seems an overly limiting way to interact with a device and you're giving up a lot of the benefits of a general computing device for some artificial but inconsistent rules.

To each their own though.

I pretty much only use computers to create. If I want to consume, I use a phone or something. I don't consume much.

So, like, if I boot up my Air from 2009, it's to write AS3 code and make a demo or something. If I boot up the one from 2015, it's probably because I want to use the Eclipse dev environment I was using then for a specific task. Both those things will simply not run if I upgrade the OS.

And not everything you didn't create is untrusted. I trust certain devs and ensure that if I install something, it is safe.

But it's much more valuable to me to have a snapshot in time of my own dev environments than it would be to have a piece of old hardware running a newer system. The hardware is barely worth anything. The state of the machine as it was, with all the software that was running perfectly on it at the time, is priceless.

Assuming all updates break everything is just as dumb as assuming all updates never break anything

Yeah, but why would I want to spend any of my time fixing anything on a machine from 2009, when the whole point is that it's a perfectly good system that does what I need when I need it?

> 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

That second line is about Windows 10.

I appreciate them giving this kind of heads up; I'll be able to buy even cheaper used Intel machines much sooner.

Why would you want that? Not like they work especially well with linux.

They work great with Linux.

No they don't… does the touchbar even work at all?

Mac pros

Why on earth would you buy an Intel Mac Pro instead of a much faster, cheaper, PC?

If you can buy one used for a steal, an Intel Mac Pro would make a sweet homelab server.

Even used Mac pros go for many multiples of their actual worth.

You mean "multiples of what I believe their actual worth is."

I mean many multiples of what it would cost to build an Intel desktop machine with identical specs.

The 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.

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.

My 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.

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.

Which also marks the end of being able to run non-Arm based Windows on Macs natively.

When you have ARM Windows available that can run Intel Windows software, I don't think that really matters.

Isn’t bootcamp there for legacy Windows apps rather than stuff compiled for ARM?

Bootcamp 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.

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.

I have a sort-of controversial opinion about this: on the contrary, this is one of the reasons I really love using a mac.

As a developer, it’s super-annoying that Apple is so aggressive in deprecation stuff, it forces us to frequently spend a bunch of extra time and energy updating our stuff to make sure it’s compatible woth latest macOS.

As a user though, this means that the experience of actually using a mac feels fresh and modern, and there’s a unity in design language that isn’t available anywhere else. It doesn’t take much digging in Windows settings to find windows that feel straight out of Windows 98, because Microsoft is so terrified of breaking things. macOS just feels better because of Apple’s aggressive deprecation policies, and I very much prefer it.

Until you use the command line and realize Apple is still shipping some crusty ancient GPL2 version of a tool from 2006.*

I found Apple's aggressive change as a user also frustrating. I don't WANT to constantly be rebuying apps and hunting down alternatives to abandoned programs to keep doing what I was doing yesterday.

*Yes, I know why. I don't care.

What do you buy then? I'm yet to know a brand that offers that long support

My work machine is from tuxedo computers. They sell spare parts too. I just changed my battery, all I needed was a screwdriver.

I had one of those for a bit.. It has like half a day of battery power. And in about 50% of the cases it didn't hibernate properly. That being said: It's probably one of the better Linux laptops. Which says about everything that needs saying :/

My Librem 14 suspends and wakes up correctly 100% of the time (I didn't test hibernation). Battery life is the only downside of good Linux laptops.

That and a crap trackpad. Mean people could call those two point more than 90% of the reason to choose a Laptop ;)

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?

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.

Yes. Linux and some Bsd variants still have PowerPc builds. Check out NetBSD.

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.

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.

Adding 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.

Your 2015 M4 Air must have been an early batch.

What does this mean?

GP initially said they had a 2015 M4 MacBook Air. It looks like they have now corrected the year to 2025.

It’s a joke, 2015 is 10 years before the M4 Air was released

Since you were using a MacBook Pro, you probably want to compare the Intel chip to an M4 Pro or M4 Max.

That means people who bought an Intel-based Mac Pro in 2023 will only have gotten security updates for five years after purchase. Wow.

Ahh 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.

Do 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/

It 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.

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.

Intel != x86_64. Or, at least, they cannot if they hope to survive.

Some more earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44230509

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

Why the end of Hackintosh? Doesn’t Windows support ARM, so there should be machines that can support newer versions of MacOS…

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.

They're introductory m4 is often< $500.

I'm generally not a fan but hell, that's peanuts

Got mine for $460

Computers 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.

I got it for running AI models

I apologize in advance.

Is Windows arm also not suitable?

Really hope this doesn’t mean that Rosetta 2 is going away.

Rosetta 2 is being ‘phased out’ over multiple years, some coverage here: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/06/apple-details-the-en...

The marketing bullshit preceding the statement "and so, you can go fuck yourselves because we're dropping support for your laptop" is infuriating.

Huh, when did I miss the point that computers became phone/tablets that should be replaced every few years?

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.

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.

Unless you have the 2020 Intel MacBook Air, no Tahoe for you.

So less than 5 years of OS updates.

You’ll still get two more years of Sequoia updates.

If you were selling laptops you would think differently.

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.

Actually you can use them as external displays but requires some hackery. See 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.

I have one I’ve been keeping around for this. The panel is indeed amazing, although the bezel detracts a lot from it.

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.

At some point Apple add Airplay display sharing on Macs, so you can do that.

I'll be doing that with our 5k Intel iMac. Of course the Mac has to be running, which is more power draw than a monitor alone.

Very strange indeed. So much for sustainability and environmental friendly.

You can use an app like Duet or other apps like these.

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.

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.

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/>

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.

> 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.

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-...

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.

Sure, but that community is interested in running the latest version of macOS on a PC. When Apple releases macOS 27 next year, they will have to think long and hard about their next move. Do I buy a Mac to keep my ability to run the latest version of macOS? Or do I tolerate that I'm running an old version of macOS, the first one with the new design that wasn't really finished in that version to boot?

I give it ten years until the websites of that community straight up disappear.

There will be interest in running a stable and sensible version of macOS on Intel Macs as long as there any Intel Macs left around.

People still use PPC Macs to do work: <https://lowendmac.com/2025/skeuomorphic-icons-a-photoshop-pr...>.

People still write new software for System 6: <https://jcs.org/system6c>, <https://amendhub.com/jcs>.

Those are all hobby projects for 20-30yro machines, few of which are left around. There are millions of Intel Macs in excellent shape. Someone will carry the mantle.

We're not talking about Intel Macs. Those are here forever as collectables. I'm talking about the continuing relevance of hackintoshes. Those will soon join the Intel Macs in the annals of history, and disappear as a relevant community.

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).

> Only for security vulnerabilities that "Apple is aware may have been actively exploited"

That still leaves a perfectly adequate machine for most common uses.

Would you be fine with your family running a vulnerable, insecure machine for everything, including communication with you?

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.

They also support updating Safari for 2 versions back of macOS.

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

But what makes it obsolete if this is what you use it for?

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.

Using a Mac without the App Store is simple; it’s not an iPad.

I have 7 Macs that I use to operate 3 businesses (and 2 more by way of consulting); precisely none of them use the App Store.

Fair point. I was talking about iOS devices which are much more locked down than macs. As i see it there are two issues with no-longer supported macs:

1. The security issue i mentioned earlier applies to macs. It’s a bit easier to mitigate because an older mac can run a newer non-system-linked browser. But e.g. firefox is dropping support for 10.14 (released in 2018) this year (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-users-macos-101...)

2. If you keep your os up to date as long as possible, new features will drag performance down to the point of being nearly unusable. So you’re forced to tradeoff between security+features and performance.

Of course, with a old mac you can always install linux to extend its lifespan… but that’s not thanks to apple

What do you mean, "no more security updates"?

Web browser engine, and OpenSSL (or equivalent) patches alone are the main concern in userspace. Those codebases are a constantly moving target. Look at the stream of CVEs and security patches that Apple publishes. Almost every bug affects every product because of how much code is shared up and down the stack.

You know they keep updating Safari and making security updates for old OSes for years, right?

Apple is definitely not the worst in this regard, but the most recent version of iOS to support the iPad 3rd generation (the device we are discussing which is being used as a PDF reader) is iOS 9.3.5 (a security/bugfix release on August 25, 2016 which supports the WiFi-only version of the iPad 3rd generation) or iOS 9.3.6 (also a bugfix release on July 22, 2019 which supports the WiFi+cellular version of the same device - specifically, this was a fix to keep GPS working).

The iPad 3rd generation was released in 2012, so the 2016 9.3.5 iOS release gave 4 years of security/bugfix support for the WiFi-only version of that device.

Sure, but there haven't been any security exploits in that version of iOS since then. It still works.

Not sure what you’re meaning? A CVE like this: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-24201 found in 2025 impacts iOS versions before 18.3.1 (Safari and iOS are shipped together).

Which means there is a decent chance an iPad running 9.3.2 is vulnerable.

And there have been thousands of CVEs since 9.3.2. Most of low severity, but not all.

Apple patches anything with a proven exploit. While it may be vulnerable, no one has written and shown Apple an exploit.

Apple patches anything with a proven exploit as long as it’s in a supported version of the OS. E.g. They will not patch versions beyond macos 10.14 i believe, not sure what the cutoff for iOS is but it’s usually about 6 years of security updates. Which means that iOS 9.3.5 is well outside of that and so a bug that impacts that os will not be patched. Which means using an old device like that on the open internet is deeply foolish

My whole point is that what you believe isn't correct. Apple continues to release security updates for "unsupported" versions (let's be careful about terminology, that term is specific and we're both using it), generally for two more years after a version becomes unsupported.

This is in a lot of the reporting about the topic and linked repeatedly in these comments. Please don't repeat false information.

Now you're right that this particular really old version also doesn't get security updates - but boy do I not have that expectation, and I would be surprised if anyone acting in good faith did.

[dead]

It's the only thing he can use it for because of planned obsolescence.

Apple forbids everyone to put a newer SSL library on it, so it can't be used on networks. I think this is outrageous, to have a great piece of hardware, and not being able to use it.

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.

A cat with its own iPad to play games on. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

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.

> Picture trying to use a PC from 1994 in the year 2008.

With all respect to PCs, my HP Pavilion DV6000 from 2006 works acceptably with Windows 10 once it got SSD.

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.

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.

> 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.

This might have been true 20 years ago, it really no longer is. My main personal computer has a CPU that was released in 2014. I got it for free from a company that was getting rid of it, I guess they could justify getting better machines. I replaced the HDD with an SSD, but that's it. I don't know when the computer itself booted the first time since I'm not the first owner, but chances are that it's about 10 years old at this point.

I mostly use Debian, but Windows supports this computer just fine as well.

The main reason electronics become unusable these days is software bloat (e.g. going from Windows 10 to Windows 11), not the hardware, and a Windows PC still feels like it can last way longer than an iPad can.

Not that I disagree about hardware lifetime (also have an old machine running strong on Debian) but just FYI Windows 10 ends this year and Windows 11 doesn't support CPUs older than 2017.

Game consoles. People still game on the Playstation 4, which first came out in 2013.

Cars still work after 15 years and have plenty of electronics in them.

Phillips HUE bulbs from 2012 are still going.

All the apps that were released when the ipad was supported still work. Same with consoles.

But you can’t download them anymore. And if you need a new app, you also can’t download an older version that would work on your device.

Not to mention apps (usually banking apps) that plainly refuse to work if you aren’t running the last version.

What you're describing is a choice by the developer of the application. There are several applications I use where users are directed to download a new app instead of forcing a breaking update.

> 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.

Literally everything else, that is not Apple hardware.

A couple Android phones, cameras, audio interfaces, controllers, chromecast, NAS, multiple arduino-style developer boards. All devices I’ve owned where either the hardware died or software became unsupported during the past decade. The only survivors are a PS4 and the Apple ones.

My relatives are still using a more than 15-year-old laptop with Debian just fine. My phone (Librem 5) will be receiving updates for its lifetime.

An ipad 2 is not a PC. 2011 PCs were fine eight years later, in 2019, and they are still fine in 2025. Maybe they are too weak for the some of the latest eyecandy games (not really tho), but there is no planned obsolescence, an Apple that actively makes their past products unusable.

Nice. Just curious, which iOS version are you running? I have one as well and the screen is great but both iOS 8 and 9 are slow as hell.

It's not that bad. My ex-partner has my old 2017 iMac and it is still supported with patches on Ventura. She's bought an M3 MBA that she hasn't set up yet because she can't be bothered.

As for Microsoft, much like the last few versions of windows, people will just continue to use it anyway. I am!

My wife has a 2015 MacBook that she uses for occasional email and web surfing. It's somewhat slow to startup, but once it's going, it's fine for most ordinary tasks.

Like billions of other people, her phone is her computer. But she occasionally runs into a web site for work, or from a government agency, that requires a real computer.

> and force their untimely retirement

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?

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.

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.

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.

Isn't Linux on Intel Macs largely a solved problem at this point?

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.

You're talking about a trillion dollar company, they could easily afford to keep going indefinitely.

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.

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.

If they're too slow to your liking, then upgrade. But for many people the performance is acceptable.

If they’re acceptable then keep using them as is.

If that's the case, Apple could easily offer a fantastic trade-in deal on existing Intel machines (say, bought in the last 5 years), to get people moved to Apple Silicon. Do you think they can't afford it? I feel bad for the person buying an Intel Mac Mini in 2022.

Apple could afford to randomly select ten thousand people via lottery and give them a million dollars. Most American HN commenters could afford to donate 80% of their salary and still live a comfortable life. And a lot I bet could donate 90%.

A person or company being able to afford something is not a compelling argument.

I know, but Apple offers trade-in credit anyway when you "sell" your old laptop back to them. Offering an additional credit as good will to recent Intel owners would do nothing but help their reputation and get old systems off the street. It doesn't effect me... I migrated to Apple Silicon years ago.

It’s just a simple value prop. Is the cost of increasing the payout worth the brand reputation?

Well we can say with confidence what Apple determined the answer to be. Only a few dorks on HN will care that a 5 year old laptop won’t get the new macOS update.

5 years is admittedly a bit short. But the M1 was a quite frankly revolutionary upgrade. So it’s a one off.

> opportunity cost of slowing down forward progress for new things.

Which ones and how?

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.

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

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

> ChromeOS devices receive 10 years of updates.

https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en

Yeah, that's post the controversy. Initially the vendors were expected to provide the updates... who obviously couldn't be arsed, so they set it to something around 1-3 yrs, which frequently went to 0 because the devices weren't sold quickly enough. That's from back when ChromeOS was initially put on the market, something around 2012-2015

Google thankfully relented and took up the maintenance burden, which ended with this policy

Yeah, the 2018 Mac Mini was sold into 2023 and isn't even getting macOS 26.

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.

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.

There always were ways to "upgrade" your Windows edition (Home -> Pro, etc) through less official channels. I can imagine these "corporate" patches will also make their way somehow.

There's also enough community interest to maintain Win10 support for more legitimate projects: <https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat>.

I'd also like EU to step in and mandate a continued patching period proportional to the number of deployed devices. After all, it's in their own interest: many devices used in day-to-day administration/operations likely do not need an upgrade; landfill is costly; etc.

So they are going to fix the bugs in the software I already paid for, but they are not going to share them with me.

From Microsoft's perspective, once your OS skew is out of support you got what you paid for in complete.

I don't see much morality in MS's practices, but at least it's straightforward. Like buying a phone with a 2 year warranty, if you actually wish for 10 years instead you'll be paying for the 8 extra years separately.

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?

They aren’t forcing anything. You can continue to run the OS that they have on them today, forever.

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

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.

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)

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.

I don't know much about MacBooks.

I recently sold my old computer with a i7-5820K. It's from 2014, but with 6 cores, 12 threads and 4 Ghz it is still fast enough for video and photo editing, and playing CPU intensive games like GTA or Red Dead Redemption 2. But can't run windows 11 because of TPM.

The hardware will work with Linux, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44169504

- 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.

> will get full access to all the new features

Plenty of newer image processing and AI features are M-series only.

Not all features, they will have no Metal 4 support, source :

https://developer.apple.com/metal/Metal-Feature-Set-Tables.p...