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Apple Announces macOS 27 'Golden Gate', Drops Support For Intel Macs (appleinsider.com) 122

Posted by BeauHD from the new-and-improved dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from AppleInsider: Apple has unveiled its next Mac operating system, macOS Golden Gate, with Apple promising better performance, the improved Siri, and more. [...] On the surface, macOS Golden Gate is not as significant an upgrade as macOS Big Sur, or even macOS Tahoe with its Liquid Glass redesign. But under the surface, it is much more significant than it seems. Apple has chosen this release to draw a line in the sand. For the first time, the new macOS Golden Gate will not support Macs that have Intel processors. [...] Nonetheless, as of when this is released to the public in September or October, no Intel Macs will ever be supported again. One of the most notable design tweaks in this new release is a refinement of macOS toolbars and sidebars: toolbars are now more distinct, sidebars can stretch all the way to the window edge, and sidebar icons have regained color. Apple is also tightening window corner radii to address complaints about resizing behavior.

Apple Announces macOS 27 'Golden Gate', Drops Support For Intel Macs More | Reply

Apple Announces macOS 27 'Golden Gate', Drops Support For Intel Macs

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  • Not the first time (Score:4, Funny)

    by michaelmalak ( 91262 ) <michael@michaelmalak.com> on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:09PM (#66181120) Homepage
    It's not the first time Apple hasn't supported Intel. Before 2005, Apple wasn't supporting Intel at all.
    • If you want to be pedantic, before that point Intel Macs did not exist; so they couldn't be unsupported prior to that time.
      • Hmm....trying to figure what to do with a 2019 beefy Intel Mac Pro...?

        Can one put Linux on those? I ask due to all the Apple hardware "security" chips I understand are in there....

        Seems it would be nice if I could eventually repurpose it with Linux, maybe throw in a couple of NVIDIA cards to be a local host for some larger AI models...?

        • How about a hypervisor like a Proxmox, and then, on top of that, whichever x86 OS one wants, be it Linux, Windows, BSD, OS-X, KolibriOS, QNX, Minix 3.x,...? That would be a very good use for an Intel based Mac Pro

          • Proxmox isn't ideal for hosting a desktop or laptop experience.

            You can run an x86 OS under it, but the visual interface to proxmox VM's is VNC, which is laggy and low fps. Not a good fit for todays 120+hz monitors

        • You sure can:

          1. install a custom bootloader in the EFI system partition (rEFInd or similar)
          2. "bless" it so that the firmware boots that instead of Apple's boot loader
          3. chain-load GRUB (or Apple's bootloader, or the Windows bootloader, etc.)

          Done.

        • Hmm....trying to figure what to do with a 2019 beefy Intel Mac Pro...?

          Um. Continue running MacOS 26?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by paiute ( 550198 )
        His joke but not as good.com

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 )

      It's not the first time Apple hasn't supported Intel. Before 2005, Apple wasn't supporting Intel at all.

      Technically they did.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      • You reminded me of the "Unofficial" PC notebook which ran Mac OS.

        Just going by my memory, there was a specific PC notebook which had the same hardware as one of the Mac Performa(?) desktop machines. After installing a boot loader, then the OS, and then another patch the notebook ran just fine except for two issues. I don't remember what one of them was. But the other was that it was hit or miss whether a bluetooth item would work or not.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by _merlin ( 160982 )

          Wut? Performa desktops were all 68K or PowerPC. The only non-Apple notebooks remotely close to them were the PowerPC-based ThinkPad 800 series, which were rare, expensive, and not really "PCs" in the conventional sense, as they couldn't run regular x86 PC operating systems.

          • not really "PCs" in the conventional sense, as they couldn't run regular x86 PC operating systems.

            In the sense that a Mac is a PC, I assume. Because they are personal computers.

      • And there was "Project Star Trek": back in '92 they got System 7 running on a 486. It was shelved as Michael Spindler pushed for the PowerPC instead, but it existed.

      • It's not the first time Apple hasn't supported Intel. Before 2005, Apple wasn't supporting Intel at all.

        Technically they did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Actually, that DOS compatibility card was for the sake of running DOS/Windows software on a Mac, since those weren't native, and PowerPC 601 was roughly on par w/ Pentiums, but certainly not superior if that software needed to be emulated. That 66MHz 486 was certainly not capable of running System 7

    • Before 2005, Apple wasn't supporting Intel at all.

      Really, I had QuickTime and iTunes way before 2005 on my x86.
    • Those are the only Macs I own. They are quite entertaining, now, too. I run A/UX on the Quadra 700 and MacOS 8.1 on the Centris 660AV (with a 50Mhz upgraded 68040, by dog!). Good times.

      I didn't need see the re-runs from NeXT. I already know how that movie ends.

      • Well, it turns out that movie ends with Apple being one of the most profitable and valuable entities on Earth.

        iOS is still using the XNU kernel, and a lot of the concepts and libraries that began life at NeXT.

    • It's not the first time Apple hasn't supported Intel. Before 2005, Apple wasn't supporting Intel at all.

      Not really news. Apple announced a year ago that MacOS 26 would be the last to support Intel Macs. They simply actually delivered on their promise.

      • And it should surprise exactly nobody. Apple maintains 5 years of software support. The last Intel Macs were sold over 5 years ago.

        This is no different than when they did the following past transitions:

        MC68000 > PowerPC
        PowerPC 32-bit > PowerPC 64-bit
        PowerPC 64-bit > x86-64
        x86-64 > ARM64

        They've done this successfully for 40 years now.

        • PowerPC 32-bit > PowerPC 64-bit

          Actually, that may well have been their final transition had Motorola/IBM been capable of showing Steve a roadmap of decreasing power consumption accompanying acceptable performance. They couldn't, but Intel at the time could. Which is why the only 64-bit PowerMac that Apple had was the G5, which was a space heater a tad less than the Itanic.

          Since Apple later on purchased PA Semi, I just wonder whether they couldn't have just purchased Motorola? Also, PA Semi was initially a designer of PowerPC CPUs:

  • No Intel fine by me (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ToasterTester ( 95180 ) on Monday June 08, 2026 @04:39PM (#66181174)

    I have multiple Macs and my oldest is my iMac i9 10-core abd I updated to the last Intel Mac OS the current Tahoe and actually wish I stayed on Sequoia. So not getting more of the Liquid Glass and no Apple Siri I'm good with. I work in audio so main reason I use Mac and after putting Tahoe on the one old Mac I think I'll be leaving my other Mac on Sequoia for a long time.

    Dear Apple please do like the Unix OS and an install option for a barebones install for us using Mac for a specific app/type of work. I don't want all the background crap going on and disk space chewed up with useless apps. All you have to do is change the installer app and add the install option.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )
      The first thing I did with my new to me Intel Mac (again, last Intel generation) is remove Tahoe and revert it to Sequoia. Screenshots on review sites made it clear it wasn't something I wanted, Liquid Glass being the primary reason. It falls under the idea of "Change for the sake of change." If your product is mature and works, stop screwing with it and accept that you've made something great. I still haven't switched over from Windows 10 on PCs and VMs and will continue to use extended support until 2028.

    • I took the financial hit years ago, when I resold my high-end configured Intel Macbook Pro to move to the M1.

      As soon as I saw the benefits of the M series processors on the platform, I knew it was the way forward. The Intel Core i9 version of my Macbook Pro had overheating issues where it would throttle its performance down every time it did anything demanding for more than a few seconds at a time. That's just wasted performance at that point.

      The battery life on M series is insanely good without feeling lik

      • To be fair, every single notebook out there with a high end "mobile" processor that isn't as thick as a brick throttles. People look at specs and buy on that, rather than thinking about what's actually going on.

        I once did the tests and proved you could get more performance over time from an i5 than an i7 in the same notebook for that exact reason. And then my company started saving several hundred dollars per unit while delivering better hardware to developers. And if someone bitched about it, I just sen

    • In other words, just install the FreeBSD+XNU? Incidentally, does Apple still stick w/ XNU, or have they dropped that and gone all FreeBSD?

      • The only bit of FreeBSD they use is the non-GPL CLI userland. And if you are using any of those tools you are better off installing homebrew and installing the GPL versions that are FAR newer from that package manager.

        Things in the FreeBSD userland in MacOS are pathetically outdated. Example: their version of `sed` (the stream editor) can't even do inline streams, because it's essentially `sed` from 2005.

        • FreeBSD is not GPL at all: what you seem to be suggesting is installing Linux i.e. replacing the FreeBSD in it, if one wants to use Unix utilities like sed

          I thought that under the hood, Apple keeps current the FreeBSD versions - the CLI w/o the X/XLibre or the DEs. Why wouldn't they?

  • Apple says there are very significant performance boosts. I wonder...did they just finally prioritize performance on their roadmap (the performance has been going SEVERELY downhill on my macbook each year)? Were they able to get performance gains by dropping Intel support? Was it something else?...maybe just getting better at AI tooling?...I have been saying all along that AI will no longer be a bullshit technology when all the major companies use the AI tools to find performance efficiencies...and sudde
    • Dropping Intel allows Apple to spend less money on development. There's zero reason it would actually cause performance improvements.

      • Uh no, because every feature has to be developed and tested and working smoothly on both operating systems .. the x86 CPUs are 6 years old .. the feature set will get out of sync really fast to accommodate it. Think about it every time someone comes up with a new feature the x86 engineer would exclaim "wait, I can't support that with reasonable perf!". At some point, like maybe last week, due to dependencies and things like that, the source will have IFDEFs that basically exclude old x86 from every feature.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Luthair ( 847766 )

          due to dependencies and things like that, the source will have IFDEFs that basically exclude old x86 from every feature

          This is complete nonsense, x86 is far more widely supported than ARM in libraries.

          The other poster is right, this is a financial benefit to Apple to abandon their users, much like Microsoft did with Windows 11.

          • For macOS? No, b'cos Apple makes much of the software, and even other software vendors who make things for Macs do it on Apple's development platforms. Not just that, since NEXTSTEP, Apple has been making their software platforms highly portable, and they now have experience doing it 4 times - Motorola 68k to PowerPC to Intel to Arm. They don't have the Wintel problem of tons of legacy software that won't run, say, on Windows-on-Arm

            x86 is only far more widely supported if one adds all the legacy OSs an

          • You think that x86 is "far more widely supported than ARM in libraries" that Apple uses, in Apple's OS, on Apple's developer toolchain, when they stopped shipping x86 hardware years ago?

            Seriously?

            We aren't talking about glibc here.

      • Dropping Intel allows Apple to spend less money on development. There's zero reason it would actually cause performance improvements.

        Except that it did. Every benchmark I have seen of even M1 vs Intels has Apple heavily outpacing their Intel counterparts. On both performance and power consumption. Previously, in CPUs, performance or power consumption usually came at the expense of the other

        Main reason for this is that Apple made their M-series an SOC, leveraging the experience from the A-series in the iPads and optimizing every parameter wherever it mattered. That's why every Mac or iPad made using Apple silicon has left not just I

    • Apple says there are very significant performance boosts. I wonder...

      I don't. I've compared runtimes on a 2020 MacBook Pro i5 and a 2020 MacBook Air M1. I've seen about 80% better on the m1. Custom image processing and computer vision code written in C++. A lightweight C++ style, more C like with some C++ features that make sense for the code. No GPU. No SIMD.

      • Apple says there are very significant performance boosts. I wonder...

        I don't. I've compared runtimes on a 2020 MacBook Pro i5 and a 2020 MacBook Air M1. I've seen about 80% better on the m1. Custom image processing and computer vision code written in C++. A lightweight C++ style, more C like with some C++ features that make sense for the code. No GPU. No SIMD.

        Yeah.I had one of the last Intel Macs. My Mac mini with M4 processor simply runs rings around it. I also use the Adobe Suite, which appears to make even larger speed increases.

        Yah, Hard to imagine why anyone would want to stick with an Intel Mac at this point.

        • Yah, Hard to imagine why anyone would want to stick with an Intel Mac at this point.

          The M4 lacks a some important security instructions that are in X86 chips. So I have to use my old Intel Mac to compile certain code. The M4 can't do it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drnb ( 2434720 )

          Hard to imagine why anyone would want to stick with an Intel Mac at this point.

          It's handy if I need to write and test SSE/AVX SIMD code. :-)

          • Might I introduce you to SIMDe?

            It's really cool, they have a general implementation of the "platform specific" instruction set headers (like xmintrin.h). The result is you can target any SIMD intrinsics and run it at a reasonable speed on any CPU.

            Obviously though the performance profile won't be right except on the intended CPU, but you can write, test, CI all the code paths on a single arch.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by drnb ( 2434720 )

              Might I introduce you to SIMDe?

              I actually usually use the Intel SIMD C extension on the Intel side, and the NEON extensions on the ARM side. Extensions can be really nice at times, the compiler scheduling and mixing SIMD and non-SIMD instructions, having inline functions, etc. It'll usually outperform a pure assembly module as a result. I expect the cross platform SIMDe extensions offer similar advantages. But as you mention, this probably gets offset a little when there is not a direct equivalent between SSE/AVX and NEON and something n

              • I actually usually use the Intel SIMD C extension on the Intel side, and the NEON extensions on the ARM side.

                Sorry you misunderstand: With SIMDe you use those APIs. You #include a SIMDe header and on intel it will simply pull in xmmintrin.h or whatever. But on ARM it'll pull in some SIMDe machinery and provide the intel SSE/AVX/whatever API. And it'll do the same for NEON.

                The main thing is that if you (for example) write NEON but sometimes run on x86, you can run your hand-crafted NEON code on x86, e.g. to

          • Hard to imagine why anyone would want to stick with an Intel Mac at this point.

            It's handy if I need to write and test SSE/AVX SIMD code. :-)

            Would you not want a different platform though? The performance differences, at this point makes using an Intel Mac feel like I'm using a, old 286 machine. I'm not all about speed, but since I use the Creative Suite, where the performance difference is breathtaking, it's a real productivity boost.

            Gives me more time to write on Slashdot! 8^)

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by drnb ( 2434720 )

              Hard to imagine why anyone would want to stick with an Intel Mac at this point.

              It's handy if I need to write and test SSE/AVX SIMD code. :-)

              Would you not want a different platform though?

              My MacBook Pro i5 dual boots macOS and Win10. I've worked on cross platform projects where when on the road I have a MacBook Pro i5 and a MacBook Air M1. Back at home I have desktops, an M4 mini and a build-your-own PC. This PC dual boots Win11/Linux. The M4 mini has Parallels and Win11 ARM and Debian ARM run really well. I'm looking forward to the day Nvidia gets ARM based PCs close to Apple Silicon.

              I'm not all about speed, but since I use the Creative Suite, where the performance difference is breathtaking, it's a real productivity boost.

              That code is probably heavily GPU based, or at least SIMD. For the more generic code mentioned far above, st

        • Because the Intel Mac, was, I think, the last of 27inch 4k screens. And it is beautiful to look at and use.

          During Corona WFH I would use this beast to Remote Desktop in to my work laptop. Because it was so much nicer. Then, after a break for dinner and some excercise, I could spend a couple of hours studying my Masters using the same machine.

          Now, I haven't need process heavy tasks, a little transcoding aside. I could have done it CPU bound or accept the compromise and use the Video Toolbox, which produces b

          • Because the Intel Mac, was, I think, the last of 27inch 4k screens. And it is beautiful to look at and use.

            That's what I had, and yes, you are right - it was a joy to look at and work on.

            27 inch screen is about as small as I use now though, and I used a 43 inch screen as my main screen. On the Mini I'm using the 43 inch, and bought a 27 for use as the secondary screen.

            Although Apple might be dropping support for the Intel Mac, I'd hope for one last bug fix release of Tahoe before it goes in to the long twighlight beyond.

          • Right now, Mac mini is where it's at for desktop. Any screen you want to buy.

        • Because:

          a. It's still working
          b. The tiny workload of serving Netflix and MythTV to the adjacent TV doesn't tax it.
          c. I'd rather it stay on macOS, like my M3 MAX daily driver MacBook Pro for uniformity, software that works on either, stuff that Linux _still_ doesn't have.

          Looks like I'll be moving it to Mint though, soon enough.

    • One of the things they talked about was a major overhaul of the scheduler. Dropping Intel made it easier to make huge kernel changes.

  • Guess my old Intel mac mini is getting a new OS.

    • I hear Intel Macs make great Linux boxes - is this going to be the thing that ushers in The Year of the Linux Desktop? LOL, ROTFLMAO...

      You could always just run the previous OS for a year or two until they really, finally drop support for older OSes on Intel.

      • "Year of the Linux Desktop" I hope not! Evil may notice! Currently, we are not worth bothering with for the most part.

      • My sever is a 2014 Mini running the current Linux Mint Cinnamon. I have a 2012 mini in the shop as a music player and PDF reader, It runs the current Linux Mint MATE.

        So yes Intel Macs make fine Linux boxes.

        • I have a Mac Pro tower...I might try to repurpose at some point with Linux.

          So, there's no problems with any of the Apple "security" hardware on the Mac boxes with respect to installing Linux and having full access to SDD, memory and other fun hardware stuff for computing?

      • Except that Linux too now has this habit of dropping support for older hardware. You're probably best off putting NetBSD on those if you have one

        • Linux just dropped pre-Pentium like last week, and I don't recall some mass effort to purge 6.x kernel distributions from the Internet - you can still install Linux on a 486SX/33 if you REALLY feel you need to.

          if you are on ANY Intel-based Mac, you have at least a decade of support coming still, as they were all x86-64 Xeon or Core / Core2 / i5 / i7 / i9 CPUs.

          Let's not be amazingly stupid.

    • Yeah, I have a 2012 27" iMac on Intel, and I installed Ubuntu on it to support the Jetson family from nVidia. Ubuntu worked fine from the get-go. I'd prefer MacOS, but reality kinda gets in the way.
    • I'm running Ubuntu on my 2011 Mac Mini, which I put an SSD into some years back. Great little media server running Kodi.

    • OH MAN I KNOW JUST HOW YOU FEEL.

      I can't install Windows 11 on my Pentium Pro 200Mhz?! WHAT THE FUCK, MICROSOFT?

      Or - and just hear me out here - you can continue running the OS that is currently loaded on it forever?

      • For the latter one, just keep it offline, if you are using it for software that only exists for it, while doing other work on a newer M-series Mac

  • The last MacBook was released in 2020 (Score:3)

    by CyberSnyder ( 8122 ) on Monday June 08, 2026 @05:25PM (#66181224)

    Six years of support is pretty good and support won't be completely dropped. It's just not compatible with the latest OS.

    • It used to be 7 years of support.
    • did them better then when they drooped power pc for shure.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by antdude ( 79039 )

      Thanks God I bought the last Intel MBP. I wanted to BootCamp and put Linux on it. Sure there's Linux for M series, but it is not ready.

  • and what happened to 16-25?

    • MacOS, IOS, WatchOS, TVOS, and that vision thing were all on different version numbers. Franckly it was a mess so they did the same Ubuntu and LibreOffice did and reset everything to the year.

    • and what happened to 16-25?

      They dropped the Roman numerals after X - you had 11 to 15. Starting this year, they changed the numbering to be the year, so it's 26

  • No more hackintosh (Score:3)

    by OrangAsm ( 678078 ) on Monday June 08, 2026 @09:13PM (#66181500)
    I guess that's the end of hackintosh including virtual ones.

  • Unless all the Tahoe shit that should've had the MacOS design team fired gets removed from Golden Gate, all of my Macs will be quite happy to remain on Sequoia thank you very much.

  • That's the reason not to use 26 or later, but the obliteration of Rosetta 2 destroys investment in legacy software that was still functional is a travesty.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      If you're relying on legacy software then you're doing something wrong.
      Removal of support just exposes dangerous behaviour that previously went unnoticed. A huge number of security weaknesses are directly attributable to legacy software and backwards compatibility.

      If software hasn't been updated since 2020 or earlier then it's a huge security risk. If you're playing with such old junk for fun then you can use an emulator, you absolutely should not be using anything old and unsupported in production with rea

      • I personally relied upon Photoshop CS3 for a long, long time (I only gave it up because I switched to a new M4 Mac). The only real online interaction was at startup where it would try and fail to contact some server for licensing purposes. It met my modest needs and I doubt there was much to worry about (I wasn't opening up random photoshop files from the internet - just my own photos).

        I suspect there are many similar programs that really aren't a security risk (e.g. local games). Clearly anything that is a

        • I use a long discontinued intel only app that runs locally only against Sparkle framework apps to find available updates called Bodega. It works great and even locally will kick off downloads of updates optionally.

          And, I have some various utility apps that do nifty things but they're intel only. Apps without network functionality don't need to be continuously molested with pointless code churn when they already work.

          Furthermore, Crossover and WineHQ IIRC requires Rosetta 2 and won't work without it.
      • You're relying on the brainwashing of perpetual consumption. Be a good little consumer and spend more money. Wanker!
  • Knew sooner or later it was coming ! Most of updates are eye candy stuff and improved Siri which I never use anyway ! its Liquid Glass redesign...was butt ugly ! Switched back to what I had ! Miss Johnny Ivey so much !

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by vux984 ( 928602 )

      Wow I guess someone had to miss him; I thought he was ridiculously overrated myself and didn't care for a lot of his design work over the years.

      If you need Ive back in your life, you could check out the new Ferrari ... most of the internet hates it, but maybe its for you.

  • Just like TenFourFox and similar browsers supported old PowerPC Macs, you can expect Intel support for browsers to keep going, and Hackintoshes will keep Intel MacOS going forever as well.

  • There's a difference between new major versions not supporting something and just blanket not supporting something.

    Will the last version still be supported with patches - particularly security updates? My guess is, probably. In which case that's a pretty good asterisk. If that's true, then every OS eventually drops some hardware off the back end, and this isn't really any different.

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