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I totally agree. If Apple can afford the development of Rosetta 2, then they could implement a safe legacy 32 bit app situation. But the whole point is to get rid of the old software you paid for at your expense sadly and falsely claim that it's in the interest of "security concerns". BS! :(
My guess is that  had to ditch support for 32-bit macOS applications in order to enable the transition to 64-bit ARM. Playing the long game.

Nice avatar, BTW.
 
The question I’m now coming across is whether to get a new Mac at all. My iPad Pro is my main computer.

Lightroom, Photoshop and most other apps I use are on iPadOS. My only outstanding Mac app, Final Cut Pro, is now running on ARM. It’s just a matter of time before it comes to iPad.

Do I even need a Mac? 🤔

I've been contemplating what to replace my 2012 27" i7 iMac for the last couple of months, and to be honest, for what I use it for now, I may just buy a monitor and a Mac mini. The real question is whether to get an Intel mini or an A-series mini--will definitely have to keep an eye on performance reviews for current and planned software.

The interesting thing for me is that underpowered 2013 MBA 11" with i5 and 4GB RAM can upgrade to Big Sur.
 
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I've been contemplating what to replace my 2012 27" i7 iMac for the last couple of months, and to be honest, for what I use it for now, I may just buy a monitor and a Mac mini. The real question is whether to get an Intel mini or an A-series mini--will definitely have to keep an eye on performance reviews for current and planned software.

The interesting thing for me is that underpowered 2013 MBA 11" with i5 and 4GB RAM can upgrade to Big Sur.

But what monitor? If Apple sold a display that didn’t cost $7K, I might consider that combination myself. As much as I loved my iMac 27”, I learned that having a Mac built into the inside of a beautiful display has made me sacrifice performance from regular upgrades because why throw out a perfectly good display to upgrade the Mac part of it? I would’ve upgraded a Mac Mini every few years.
 
I have a Late-2013 iMac, 27 inch.

Upgraded it with 32GB of RAM and 1TB SSD. It's still lightning-fast. No way in hell this is unsupported at the same time the 2012 model is unsupported!

All in all, this machine cost me 3000 CAD. Seven years later, buying the same specs from Apple would cost me 3500 CAD. Apple definitely has increased prices throughout the years, and used the Retina Displays as an excuse.
 
I wonder how much of macOS 11 we can end up using on unsupported Macs stuck on Catalina. Will Safari be upgradable? New maps data will surely appear across all Apple Maps. iWork apps will have the new look and features. Any other system apps upgradeable from the Mac App Store?
 
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I own two mid-2012 MBPs and just found they didn't make the cut, which is fine. Catalina is good enough, PSB thumbnails at long last properly render. The APFS is a tad more robust. USB3 is ok and I just got a 2TB drive put in with 16GB ram. Should be good for a year or two of security updates.

What happens? We'll see...
 
I bought my 27'' iMac (Late 2013) brand new in spring of 2015. That's only five years ago! Hardware-wise I don't feel like there is any reason for me to spend a lot of money upgrading. Very disappointing if they won't support it.
 
Honest question....is there anything that is going to stop working for those of you that cannot upgrade to Big Sur? I find it puzzling that people using 8+ year old devices are peeved that they have to use a 1+ year old OS. I assume I'm missing something, so I'm actually curious.
I still see people running Windows 7 or even XP sometimes for their day jobs, which is ridiculous, but for them, what's not broke...
 
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No motivation to upgrade from Mohave unless they bring back Support for 32-bit programs.

VirtualBox/VMWare/Parallels for the win here.
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What’s the best macOS for the 2012 Mac mini to live forever on ?

If it were possible someone would say Snow Leopard. Perhaps High Sierra for full APFS support?
 
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My Late 2013 iMac has served me well for the last 7 years... time for an upgrade.

I own the same model. Bought it from my previous employer who was going to throw it out because someone knocked it over and broke the screen. They didn't think the $400 screen repair cost was worth it. $400 for a $1800 iMac... I'm cool with paying for that. :)

But yeah, it still runs great but it's starting to show its age.
 
What is it about my 2012 27 inch iMac that makes it incompatible with Big Sur? The 64 bit i7 3770k? The Nvidia 680M with only 2 GB of VRAM? Probably not the fact that my iMac has 32GB of RAM, which to this day is still more than most people need.

My guess is on the Nvidia card. It seems that they have giving up on doing Nvidia drivers altogether.
 
Horrible catch 22 now - my late 2013 imac is struggling a bit - I suspect nothing an SSD wouldn't fix were I brave enough.

However it won't take Big Sur but there seems little point in replacing it with an intel imac - but who knows how long I'll be waiting for a 27" arm model.
 
Not that I am disagreeing with your point, but the 2012 was Ivy Bridge 3rd gen, and the 2013 was Haswell/4th gen. But as an owner of a mid 2012 cMBP, I'm sad that it's finally dropping off the list. I did the SSD upgrade to it myself, and it's still fairly snappy. But I also haven't installed Catalina yet either. I guess I'll finally make that jump later this year.

Thanks for correcting me... you are right. I was getting getting confused between the "early 2013 rMBP" (which had the Ivy Bridge, but only Thunderbolt 1) and the "late 2013 rMBP" (which has the Haswell and Thunderbolt 2).

Now, this does get interesting, as the the MacRumors post does not mention the early 2013 rMBP. I'm going to assume it is not supported since it's basically the same machine as the mid 2012.

I also did an SSD upgrade on my machine (from stock 256GB SSD to a 1TB Samsung SSD), but unlike with your upgrade, it was for additional storage and not performance.
 
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I think Apple switch from intel to Arm , not for more speed , but only to get a more close ecosystem and get more bucks from customers...
Immo
 
I am not confident that Apple 2020 can handle the transition.
And tbh Big Sur feels like Apple is releasing another Leopard after the Leopard that was Catalina (which may or may not be the last current OS the Intel platform sees).
 
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