macOS 27 Will Mark the End of an Era

[ResPublica]

In my humble opinion, Apple is making a mistake, a lot of people spent considerable amounts of money on the intel pro mac. They are massively expandable and up gradable. I dual boot Windows and can run that with a nvidia gpu which saves a lot of headaches when developing different programs. I know that Tahoe will be maintained for many years, but, I think Steve Jobs is looking down and shaking his head in disgust.

Steve Jobs ditched the PowerPC Macs way faster than Tim Cook abandons Intel.
After the transition in 2005, Mac OS X on PowerPC received only ONE new version, 10.5 Leopard.
As someone who experienced both traditions, I'd say that users who invested a lot in a derelict platform were treated better this time.

 

[nnoble]

I've never thought of any computer interface as either hideous or beautiful. To me they're Just easy access menus that get me to where I need to be. From the green flashing C:\> onward they've been ok. Just, ok.

 

[apple contributor]

I wonder how long they’ll support m1… its still really fast today at least for me

 

[Scipster]

I wonder how long they’ll support m1… its still really fast today at least for me

Agreed, I don't see why Apple would have to drop the m1 (or any m-series chip) unless they were to adopt a new Secure Enclave chip, like a T3 or something... Of course, there's always planned obsolescence.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

You're effectively saying "if Tim signs off on a new iMac Pro, I will consider him radical and visionary"
That's... one way to look at it, I guess

Personally, I think making the risky, expensive, long-term bet on in-house silicon is a better example of "radical" and "visionary" thinking than "what if they remade the iMac G4 with modern components"

Can't they do both? Apple has already moved chips a few times. They acquired PA Semi to move into chips and had the money to go forth and took the gamble. I more of less am saying their head isn't in making visionary products right now. More about making me-toos.

 

[nt5672]

This year and next might be the years for the majority of the rest of the Mac user base to make the move from Intel to Apple Silicon. A shame it coincided with Apple messing up the macOS UI. And more than a few app icons for that matter.

Nope it is the year we move to Linux. As bad as that may be, some of us are still required to work with x86.

 

[Siliconguy]

I set up a Hackintosh about 10 years ago. It was not hard to do if you bought components that worked. It was much cheaper than an iMac at the time (ignoring the great screen) and ran OS X, which is considerably better than all Linux distros.

10 years ago you were correct. I was working with SUSE Linux at work and it was one of those 'so close but so far' experiences.

By 2020 the gap had closed at least on Mint. There will always be Gentoo and Arch and the other distributions for masochists, but for the getting work done crowd you were there. Linux has improved since then, and honestly I don't think MacOS has. I have Sonoma on this M1, and Mohave on the 2010 Mac Pro. Is Sonoma any better than Mohave? Sonoma may have some new features, but wouldn't those features also work if ported to Mohave?

PS, the Mac Pro also has Windows, Fedora 43 with Plasma, and Mint Cinnamon. I can compare them directly. I did have Monterey on that Pro via OCLP and the OS worked very well, but not all the software did due to no AVX instructions in the Xeon.

 

[nt5672]

I do, it was a great room heater.

Unfortunately great tech should not rely on feelings, bit rather facts. A lot of people still use x86 and to work with them you need something that supports x86.

Even Apple runs x86 for the cloud servers and AI development. This is just again another way for Apple to prove they make toys, not real computers. Now that may be toys that serve a purpose for email, YouTube and TickTock, but that does not require real computing resources anymore.

 

[ChamomileTea]

Oh, this also marks the end of the Hackintosh community

Make macOS run on the Raspberry Pi or Windows laptops that have ARM chips.

 

[Padre_Pio]

It's crazy--you can buy nicely specced Mac Pro (2019) for under $2K. If Intel had a few more years, I would pull the trigger.

 

[throAU]

In my humble opinion, Apple is making a mistake, a lot of people spent considerable amounts of money on the intel pro mac. They are massively expandable and up gradable. I dual boot Windows and can run that with a nvidia gpu which saves a lot of headaches when developing different programs. I know that Tahoe will be maintained for many years, but, I think Steve Jobs is looking down and shaking his head in disgust.

They’re 7 going on 8 years old.

Professionals buy equipment with a lifecycle, which is typically 3-5 years. People who need the performance buy higher performing equipment as it becomes available.

I very much doubt steve jobs is looking down in disgust, the mac pro is the antithesis of what he wanted the mac to be, he never wanted a device with memory expansion or slots.

 

[ResPublica]

It's crazy--you can buy nicely specced Mac Pro (2019) for under $2K. If Intel had a few more years, I would pull the trigger.

The best value are the 27" iMacs, which you can buy for a few hundred €.
They are often in pristine condition (unlike laptops), and the screen alone is still incredible.

 

[nt5672]

There were only a few Intel Macs which were still able to run Tahoe, so for the regular user, this isn't a big change. For the Hackintosh/OCLP-community, however, macOS 27 will really be the end. Still, Sequioa and Tahoe will still receive security updates for 2 or 3 years at least, and many Intel Macs remain perfectly usable.

Well I installed Tahoe on my 17 inch MacBook Pro and the performance was cut in about half. It was my last Intel Mac. But I still have to work with x86 so I am in the process of moving everything to Linux for that work.

 

[throAU]

It's crazy--you can buy nicely specced Mac Pro (2019) for under $2K. If Intel had a few more years, I would pull the trigger.

The reason they’re so cheap is because the platform is dead and the performance is no longer cutting edge.

 

[ResPublica]

Well I installed Tahoe on my 17 inch MacBook Pro and the performance was cut in about half. It was my last Intel Mac. But I still have to work with x86 so I am in the process of moving everything to Linux for that work.

You are probably right that Tahoe impacted your performance, but I had performance issues myself on a MacBook Air M1, and I decided after 5 years of updating to do a clean install. My device's performance increased significantly and I can't say that Tahoe feels any slower than Sequoia. So clean installing could be something to try out.

 

[mikerahl]

Seriously, it’s not that bad. I was a hater, but 26 has enough new features that make the minor ui annoyances worth it.

Things like sending calls direct to voicemail from my mac for instance.

Agreed, it took me about 2 minutes to get used to it on my mac, iphone and ipad.

 

[GtrDude]

Will we be able to set the finder window at a size that we want and after a reboot the computer won't default to what Apple decides we like?

How about a real and tru click-through and not force us to have to hold down the ctrl button and click that way?

 

[Corefile]

I think they'll give it a reprieve as there are still a lot of Intel Macs out there. Far more Intel Macs than Apple Silicon based Macs.

 

[Killerbob]

Unfortunately I agree, this marks the end of the Hackintosh community. Unfortunately because I think they serve a purpose. Not that running macOS on some funky hardware is important to me, but because that community also came up with the OpenCore Legacy Patcher, which allows a lot of people to run the latest macOS on older Macs.

I have a ‘13 Mac Pro and a ‘16 MacBook Pro, that both run Sequoia, even when they lost official support some time ago. They actually run Sequoia really well.

 

[appeals.key_0k]

Respected, 100%

As an opinion.
If we were to approach this factually, a booold, bold overstatement.

Like i said, people gonna people(tm) and it's O.K.
Just my opinion, knowing what i know, which (if you think OSX is "bestest"), may be more than others do 🙂

The most telling part of your argument is that you couldn't be bothered to list even a single linux distro that you find superior to macOS.

 

[neuropsychguy]

10 years ago you were correct. I was working with SUSE Linux at work and it was one of those 'so close but so far' experiences.

By 2020 the gap had closed at least on Mint. There will always be Gentoo and Arch and the other distributions for masochists, but for the getting work done crowd you were there. Linux has improved since then, and honestly I don't think MacOS has. I have Sonoma on this M1, and Mohave on the 2010 Mac Pro. Is Sonoma any better than Mohave? Sonoma may have some new features, but wouldn't those features also work if ported to Mohave?

PS, the Mac Pro also has Windows, Fedora 43 with Plasma, and Mint Cinnamon. I can compare them directly. I did have Monterey on that Pro via OCLP and the OS worked very well, but not all the software did due to no AVX instructions in the Xeon.

There are some excellent Linux distros -- I'm running Mint (in a Proxmox server), Ubuntu, SteamOS, and unRAID on personal computers and my main work computer is running RHEL 9. They all have their uses, but none of them are objectively better than macOS. They've improved more than macOS has in the past 10 years because they had more room to improve.

However, let's just say that as many improvements as Linux has made, I would not have my less techie family members use a Linux computer as their main one, especially since they mainly run laptops. macOS is just too good and reliable. It just works. I'm not worried about updates breaking WiFi or some other random component. I've had that happen several times with Linux OSes as recently as a couple years ago (and one laptop needs a USB connected WiFi module because the built-in one does not work with any version of Linux I've tried). The fact that I can run most of the command line tools from the Linux world I need on my Macs is another bonus.

Also, this is obviously just my opinion, but I think macOS is better now than it was 10 years ago -- I had few problems 10 years ago with it, but have basically none now and haven't for years. Windows works well too. Linux distros are also good.

 

[Chet-NYC]

So the Macs that won't be compatible will be seven years or more old at that point. That is the traditional point where Apple starts labeling products as obsolete. Chances are, if you have a seven or more years old Mac, it probably is time for a new one.

 

[Chanocmty]

If it removes support for Intel Macs, how is the 2019 Mac Pro still supported?

It says Tahoe, which is the OSX that came out last year. The 2027 OSX, unnamed as of now, which comes out this fall is the one that won't support intel macs.

 

[turbineseaplane]

One would be really surprised how many of current Mac Store apps require Rosetta to run. It has been five processor models since Intel and folks are still dragging their heels to make their products compliant. The gravy train for older apps will stop when Rosetta gets turned off and while I would miss many of these programs, they were warned to get their programming act together and join our current operating system reality.

No sympathy for the antique programmers who seem to be riding it out to just drop the ball on their customer bases of many years.

The ones actually getting punished here are the users (us).

Losing compatibility with legacy software isn't some big "win".

 

[magbarn]

Mac Pro (2019) is Intel 🧐
as is "iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020)" which is also in the list

Never mind - I see that they're listing computers compatible with Tahoe... in an article about not-Tahoe 🤦🏻‍♂️

So the only Macs being dropped are:

• MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)
• MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)
• iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020)
• Mac Pro (2019)

Kind of a "Yawn" - unless you happen to have one of those four models, I guess 😬

It’s much worse than that many of us have been using OCLP and I even have my 2017 Mac Mini running MacOS 26 perfectly fine.