Apple Announces "3rd Transition" for macOS: From Intel CPUs to Apple Silicon

[chessmaster007]

Looks like all those years of learning assembly on my Pi. Will pay off. But, I predict the next generation of hackintosh. Will require an FPGA and real hacking. FPGA's are the future. I'm very curious how the market will change in the next 15 years. SoC will be coming to the desktop? That will be interesting. Even if it's coming from a closed source company with a small market share in the office. That is alot of time in hardware years. Very interesting times we are living in.

 

[Bustycat]

On a "Pro" machine I cannot imagine Apple dropping macOS support in less than 7 years. Anything can happen, but Tim Cook said this in the WWDC keynote yesterday:

At the 1 hour 46 minute mark:

"We plan to continue to support and release new versions of macOS for Intel-based Macs for years to come. In fact, we have some new Intel-based Macs in the pipeline that we're really excited about."

I have seen many Hackintosh users being too hysterical or too optimistic recently. There is no reason to worry about current Hackintosh builds and question ARM-based Macs now, but predicting a 7-year support is also dangerous. Apple officially estimates the lifespan of macOS devices as only 4 years.

Thus it is better to enjoy your current Hackintosh machine and save money for a new ARM-based Mac released in 2024, or just switch to Windows or a Linux distro.

 

[CaseySJ]

I have seen many Hackintosh users being too hysterical or too optimistic recently. There is no reason to worry about current Hackintosh builds and question ARM-based Macs now, but predicting a 7-year support is also dangerous. Apple officially estimates the lifespan of macOS devices as only 4 years.

Thus it is better to enjoy your current Hackintosh machine and save money for a new ARM-based Mac released in 2024, or just switch to Windows or a Linux distro.

There is no official lifespan for macOS devices. The past several versions of macOS have supported 7-year old hardware. There is no actual evidence that this will change now. There is only speculation, which is also dangerous because it can unnecessarily scare potential buyers.

 

[Bustycat]

I highly doubt it, but let's see. Apple only makes one ARM/Bionic chip at a time, don't they? I think they had a graphic that showed they've released one ARM chip every year since 2010. Unless they scale up production to where you have options on how powerful the ARM chip is the Mac Pro is pretty safe.

The official deadline for completing the transition is only 2 years from now. Unless the schedule is delayed, we should see ARM-based Mac Pro models within 2 years.

 

[Bustycat]

There is no official lifespan for macOS devices. The past several versions of macOS have supported 7-year old hardware. There is no actual evidence that this will change now. There is only speculation, which is also dangerous because it can unnecessarily scare potential buyers.

It is just an official estimation according to Apple: 4 years for macOS and tvOS devices; 3 years for iOS, iPadOS and watchOS devices. Moreover, the reason why 7-year old models are supported by macOS 11.0 should be the slow improvement of Intel Core CPUs.

 

[Bustycat]

Also bad news for Mac/Hackintosh people who need Windows:

Rosetta Won't Support x86 Virtualization Apps Running Windows

Apple yesterday announced plans to build future Macs with its own custom silicon chips, and to ease the transition away from Intel processors, Apple...

www.macrumors.com

 

[MichaelBhea]

Whats Ironic, is I may have to change my iMac over to a Windows or Linux machine in the near future. Its a Haswell i5 but still has lots of life

 

[scottkendall]

Also bad news for Mac/Hackintosh people who need Windows:

Rosetta Won't Support x86 Virtualization Apps Running Windows

Apple yesterday announced plans to build future Macs with its own custom silicon chips, and to ease the transition away from Intel processors, Apple...

www.macrumors.com

I have been back and forth between Virtualization and Running a real windows machine. I ultimately landed on Virtualization only because it allowed me to work more seamlessly between windows and Mac. Though for a really long time I had a windows PC I accessed remotely using HP Remote Graphics Software, if the drag and drop and clipboard worked better I would have never went back to parallels... For me better work flow was > raw power but if there is no longer a choice back to the Remote I go. I do realize not everyone wants to have two computers or has the money for both. And really this only affects people that want to stay up to date with the newest OS. I know sound engineers that are still running mavericks.

 

[skyz]

I have seen many Hackintosh users being too hysterical or too optimistic recently. There is no reason to worry about current Hackintosh builds and question ARM-based Macs now, but predicting a 7-year support is also dangerous. Apple officially estimates the lifespan of macOS devices as only 4 years.

Thus it is better to enjoy your current Hackintosh machine and save money for a new ARM-based Mac released in 2024, or just switch to Windows or a Linux distro.

Yes, enjoy what you've until it's not working anymore, including MacOS. it's been a long time Apple trying to eliminate Mac and unify both OS into one, you can tell from Big Sur, it looks and feels the same as iOS in every single bit and I won't be surprise to see iMac becomes a gigantic iPad with 27" touch screen few years later. Same platform same hardware but closed system is the most cost effective way to generate profit.

 

[D.Houch]

I kinda wanna build a Mac OS 9 machine now. Relive the old days... Play some Myth and Marathon and Escape Velocity... Even my current machine can't do that. Apple killed PPC → Intel Rosetta so, so long ago... Like, WHY do that!

Ugh... They'll just do it again...
Now I wanna restore my old SE/30 and put system 6 on it... Play some Dungeon of Doom. Same goes with my 840av... put System 7 on it, play some Color Vette!

So when you look back for the sheer nostalgia of it all, remind me once again how that ol' Moto-RISC era MacOS "Cooperative Multitasking" works out for ya'!

Actually, I fired up my old PPC 7200/120 not long ago AND my Quadra 610/DOS Compatible -- the "Pizza Box Macintosh" https://lowendmac.com/1994/quadra-610-dos-compatible/ and man... that lightning fast cooperative multitasking was pretty speedy... providing you only opened one application at a time!

Have fun with the nostalgia!