macOS Tahoe signals that the end is near for Intel Macs, dumping all but four models

All Intel MacBook Airs and Mac minis are gone; just a few other models remain.

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[jackmactamas]

Not hugely surprising. Apple did something similar I believe when they moved from PowerPC to Intel.

 

[antibolo]

The real test will be when Apple will start dropping support for Apple Silicon Macs.

The bare minimum 1st gen AS MacBook Air is still a very capable machine today. At least with Intel Macs they have the excuse of wanting to ditch x86 once and for all, but now that Macs are on an architecture that Apple has complete control over, there's really no excuse to ditch anything so far.

 

[stuff4ben]

I have a pretty old Intel MacBook Air, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD. What could I use this for instead? Any chance to install Linux on it and "do something"? Currently it's a literal paperweight on my very messy desk.

 

[Galvanic]

So cool that the MacBook Air I bought my wife less than 5 years ago is no longer supported.

Did it magically stop working when Apple made the announcement? Or is it exactly the same machine as it was before this morning?

 

[clackerd]

I have a pretty old Intel MacBook Air, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD. What could I use this for instead? Any chance to install Linux on it and "do something"? Currently it's a literal paperweight on my very messy desk.

Apple's intel stuff is typically pretty linux-friendly in my experience, especially the older models.

 

[antibolo]

I have a pretty old Intel MacBook Air, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD. What could I use this for instead? Any chance to install Linux on it and "do something"? Currently it's a literal paperweight on my very messy desk.

The answer for old hardware (in the realm of x86, at least) is ALWAYS Linux.

 

[UnnDunn]

I guess my MacBook M1 Pro only has two or three macOS versions left to look forward to. I'll be happy if it gets to macOS 30, but it probably won't.

 

[Rambie]

I have a pretty old Intel MacBook Air, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD. What could I use this for instead? Any chance to install Linux on it and "do something"? Currently it's a literal paperweight on my very messy desk.

I have a friend that installed Ubuntu onto his old Macbook not sure if it was an Air but it was an Intel model.

 

[nickf]

When will Rosetta2 be pulled? (The X86 translation layer for Apple Silicon Macs).

 

[maatriks]

This has me a little nervous. I have a M1 Max MacBook Pro I bought in 2022. I feel like this is so close to mine already becoming obsolete.

They have not dropped any apple silicon macs yet, right? Would not worry about it just yet.

 

[Daros]

Apple's intel stuff is typically pretty linux-friendly in my experience, especially the older models.

The only thing I've had trouble with in my playing is getting the camera working. Everything else works just fine.

 

[jmauro]

Not hugely surprising. Apple did something similar I believe when they moved from PowerPC to Intel.

They're being a bit more aggressive in the Intel to Apple Silicon then they were from the PowerPC to Intel era. There was a 6 year window between the release of the first Intel Mac OS, Tiger, and the first one to drop PowerPC, Snow Leopard.

 

[OSB]

This has me a little nervous. I have a M1 Max MacBook Pro I bought in 2022. I feel like this is so close to mine already becoming obsolete.

I don’t think you should draw any conclusions about long-term support of Apple Silicon chips, from Apple’s step-wise move away from a completely different architecture.

 

[Anvil.ogg]

They're being a bit more aggressive in the Intel to Apple Silicon then they were from the PowerPC to Intel era. There was a 6 year window between the release of the first Intel Mac OS, Tiger, and the first one to drop PowerPC, Snow Leopard.

Check your math... The first Intel iMac came out in January 2006, and Snow Leopard was released in August 2009.

 

[SNESChalmers]

So cool that the MacBook Air I bought my wife less than 5 years ago is no longer supported.

I feel for you if you were one of the last Intel MacBook Air buyers in 2020 right before the M1 came out, but 5 years of feature updates and still another 2 to go of security patches isn't that bad. There's also OpenCore Legacy Patcher that will very likely allow you to run macOS 26 just fine (and future versions too as long as they still have x86 architecture support)

 

[approximate_pi]

The answer for old hardware (in the realm of x86, at least) is ALWAYS Linux.

For apple’s ARM machines too, Asahi works great

 

[poink]

The answer for old hardware (in the realm of x86, at least) is ALWAYS Linux.

Or FreeBSD -- as I'm using a MacBookAir running FreeBSD 14.2 in order to read this.

 

[antibolo]

For apple’s ARM machines too, Asahi works great

Uh no, there's still too many things that don't work yet in Asahi to legitimately claim with a straight face that it "works great".

But it's getting there. Hopefully by the time Apple drops support for first gen hardware, Asahi will have everything working.

 

[wardred]

Did it magically stop working when Apple made the announcement? Or is it exactly the same machine as it was before this morning?

It doesn't stop working, but the lack of security updates, or eventual lack of them, is concerning.

Eventually it's likely there'll be something nasty that won't get updated.

 

[fahirsch]

So cool that the MacBook Air I bought my wife less than 5 years ago is no longer supported.

You can always use for, two years more? OpenCore to update to macOS 2028

 

[SNESChalmers]

For apple’s ARM machines too, Asahi works great

Asahi won't even boot on M3 or M4 Macs. It's experimental and suggesting anything but is a disservice.

 

[williamyf]

I have a pretty old Intel MacBook Air, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD. What could I use this for instead? Any chance to install Linux on it and "do something"? Currently it's a literal paperweight on my very messy desk.

My 2015 air 8/256 is running sequoia as of now using OCLP. You could do that too. Tutorials abound.

or, you could use bootcamp to run Win10/server2019/server2022 and be supported for a few more years.

Linux is also an option, but installing it without nuking MacOS is... tricky

 

[Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer]

Whoof, that’s getting too close for comfort for my beloved 27” iMac.

Then again…for what I use it for, I don’t know how much it matters if it’s on the latest OS. I reckon Firefox and Word and Excel and Musescore will all still run on older versions of the OS.

 

[Batmanuel]

My 2015 air 8/256 is running sequoia as of now using OCLP. You could do that too. Tutorials abound.

or, you could use bootcamp to run Win10/server2019/server2022 and be supported for a few more years.

Linux is also an option, but installing it without nuking MacOS is... tricky

I have a 2013 Retina MacBook Pro that unfortunately has such an old i5 that can’t be upgraded to Windows 11, so even Bootcamp isn’t an option for me once October rolls around unless I go Linux.

 

[mikeschr]

Apple is very aggressive about requiring the latest OS.

For example, XCode requires 15.2 or later.. which came out in December.

I can see an argument for requiring XCode to be on the latest OS. As for everything else, I usually stay a major version behind on my Macs and I've never had a problem. I wouldn't call that "aggressive about requiring the latest OS."

 

[davidlars]

Uh no, there's still too many things that don't work yet in Asahi to legitimately claim with a straight face that it "works great".

But it's getting there. Hopefully by the time Apple drops support for first gen hardware, Asahi will have everything working.

Agreed but it works surprisingly well. The main issue for me is the lack of Thunderbolt/USB4 support. But I'm sure that'll come before long.

 

[storm2k]

Given that it's been five years since Apple Silicon debuted, I think the cliff for the Intel Macs is fair. I think this year's cliff was pretty steep as it looks like a number of Macs that had the T2 chip got the axe this year. I'm betting the CPU and GPU power to draw all those transparent glass material interface elements would have caused performance dips that Apple would never allow (as I feel they learned a LOT about the performance of Aqua in the early days of OS X on less capable hardware and how negatively viewed it was through the first 2-3 iterations of the operating system). At least most of those old Intel Macs should run some flavor of *nix pretty well without a ton of effort. They've come a very long way to fully supporting the hardware Apple was putting in their Intel products over the years.

 

[mknelson]

They're being a bit more aggressive in the Intel to Apple Silicon then they were from the PowerPC to Intel era. There was a 6 year window between the release of the first Intel Mac OS, Tiger, and the first one to drop PowerPC, Snow Leopard.

Your OSes are off, but your timing is correct
Tiger: 2005, first Intel Mac was Feb 2006
Snow Leopard: 2009 (still had Rosetta)
Lion: 2011 (dropped Rosetta)

 

[williamyf]

I have a 2013 Retina MacBook Pro that unfortunately has such an old i5 that can’t be upgraded to Windows 11, so even Bootcamp isn’t an option for me once October rolls around unless I go Linux.

Win10 + esu will be supported until 2026. Server19 until ~2030 and server22 until ~2033, and OCPL can put you on sequoia today, giving you until at least 2027...

but linux is a fine choice too

 

[ced_122]

Yeah, not that surprising. If anything, I'm surprised they supported them for so long, it took less than 4 years for them to stop supporting their PowerPC Macs at the time, from the original Intel iMac 2006 to 2009 Snow Leopard (and Rosetta death in 2011). OpenCore Legacy Patcher will definitely give people a few years more, but the latest releases are still pretty unstable since Apple are actively trying to prevent older models from booting the OS (no graphical fallback if you don't completely support Metal, removal of a lot of USB drivers, older keyboards and trackpads needing a lot of hacks to be recognized, T2 chip becoming more and more of a requirement, etc.), so the experience might not be great for everyone.

 

[Stone]

I have a pretty old Intel MacBook Air, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD. What could I use this for instead? Any chance to install Linux on it and "do something"? Currently it's a literal paperweight on my very messy desk.

I'd wipe all personal information and sell it. I've never liked the idea of having unsupported OS's in my house connecting to the internet. I don't know that linux would add to its usefulness if you have much more powerful computing hardware at your disposal already.

 

[mrkite77]

I can see an argument for requiring XCode to be on the latest OS. As for everything else, I usually stay a major version behind on my Macs and I've never had a problem. I wouldn't call that "aggressive about requiring the latest OS."

Final Cut Pro requires 14.6 which came out July 2024. Logic Pro requires 14.4, which came out March 2024.

 

[EmeraldArcana]

Given that it's been five years since Apple Silicon debuted, I think the cliff for the Intel Macs is fair. I think this year's cliff was pretty steep as it looks like a number of Macs that had the T2 chip got the axe this year. I'm betting the CPU and GPU power to draw all those transparent glass material interface elements would have caused performance dips that Apple would never allow (as I feel they learned a LOT about the performance of Aqua in the early days of OS X on less capable hardware and how negatively viewed it was through the first 2-3 iterations of the operating system). At least most of those old Intel Macs should run some flavor of *nix pretty well without a ton of effort. They've come a very long way to fully supporting the hardware Apple was putting in their Intel products over the years.

Yes, I know that it's been six years, but I spent like $2000 on my Intel Mac Mini (which, in retrospect was a gigantic mistake - but that's a story for another time) and it would be nice to know that it's going to last forever. So that I can OBVIOUSLY get my money's worth.

But, from a less biased perspective, I think we've reached a point where, at least for many desktops and many laptops, you're not seeing that much of a need to upgrade after 6 years. The aforementioned Mac Mini was relegated to the role of an average office computer and it manages web stuff, writing, managing documents, and other things perfectly fine.

 

[Martin123]

Apple is very aggressive about requiring the latest OS.

I still have a 2014 5k iMac around and it works just fine. Obviously I wouldn't want to use it as my development machine, but for doing emails and writing LaTeX it's totally OK...

 

[Jeff S]

My 2015 air 8/256 is running sequoia as of now using OCLP. You could do that too. Tutorials abound.

or, you could use bootcamp to run Win10/server2019/server2022 and be supported for a few more years.

Linux is also an option, but installing it without nuking MacOS is... tricky

I assume OCLP is basically doing a trick to get the latest intel-builds of MacOS, e.g. the ones intended for the 4 remaining models, to work on 'unsupported' models.

If that's the case, once Apple stops creating builds for ANY intel models, won't you be stuck?

 

[gijames1225]

I have a 2019 MacBook Pro 16in, and it's a little annoying that it probably has at best one more update coming it's way given how perfectly fine it is as a computer and how much it cost, but fortunately I don't use it for Apple development so losing current Xcode support isn't an immediate concern.

I'd complain about Apple more and praise Microsoft if they hadn't suddenly ruined their up until recently amazing support of older hardware with the Windows 11 requirements. At least they don't tie major tooling to operating system releases the way Apple does though.