Future of Hackies...?

Cerberus73 said:

Hey if i get the next couple of MacOS versions after Monterey, and Photoshop and Illustrator to run on the new i9 rig i intend on building, then ill be happy, therafter id just pick up a Mac Mini.. i wont buy a M1 version at the minute, i bought the first gen PPC mini almost as soon as it came out, and to this day it was the most unreliable computer i ever owned. Put me off first gen hardware for life, so ill wait till the M series are into late 2nd iteration or 3rd. and same with Laptop, im using a 2017 (bought in 2018) Macbook Pro, its fine for what i need it for, eventually ill replace that with a 13-14" Macbook pro, or air depending what is out and how quick it is.

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Of course whatever is working now will continue to work.

My old Blue & White Power Mac G3 was one of the best Macs I ever had. We were even able to overclock it by just moving a few jumpers around and it was passively cooled.

Unless some company ports the video game "Obsidian" to Intel (or M1) Macs, I will keep my Early 2005 2.7 GHz dual-cpu PPC G5 for the rest of my life. (And it runs "Classic" apps too, under Mac OS 10.4.11!)

wstrohm said:

Unless some company ports the video game "Obsidian" to Intel (or M1) Macs, I will keep my Early 2005 2.7 GHz dual-cpu PPC G5 for the rest of my life. (And it runs "Classic" apps too, under Mac OS 10.4.11!)

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It might be possible to run the Windows version in Wine or CrossOver.

pastrychef said:

It might be possible to run the Windows version in Wine or CrossOver.

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Thanks for the suggestion. I don't think Code Weavers has listed that game in Crossover, but it's been a while. I'll have a look at their website.

We all have our opinions…I think that Apple will continue to support x86 for 5-7 years after the last Intel Mac ships next year. Intel Macs have a very long useful life, which was not true of power PC Macs, or any computers, 15 years ago. I believe that today’s new Macs will get OS updates for 5 years and security updates for 7 years. Also, many of us run unsupported MacOS versions for years with no problems (I have an old Mac running High Sierra!). If building a Hackintosh is your thing, I think there will be time to enjoy it for a long time, way beyond it’s point of obsolescence. In the meantime, will we figure out how to make a Hackintosh with non-Apple ARM processors and SoC’s? Probably.

DASamuels said:

In the meantime, will we figure out how to make a Hackintosh with non-Apple ARM processors and SoC’s? Probably.

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Someone will have to write macOS graphics drivers for non-Apple Arm SoCs. Non-Apple Arm SoCs will also not have macOS compatible video encoder/decoders and Neural Engine.

You'd also need drivers for Ethernet, Wi-Fi, storage, etc...

DASamuels said:

We all have our opinions…I think that Apple will continue to support x86 for 5-7 years after the last Intel Mac ships next year. Intel Macs have a very long useful life, which was not true of power PC Macs, or any computers, 15 years ago. I believe that today’s new Macs will get OS updates for 5 years and security updates for 7 years. Also, many of us run unsupported MacOS versions for years with no problems (I have an old Mac running High Sierra!). If building a Hackintosh is your thing, I think there will be time to enjoy it for a long time, way beyond it’s point of obsolescence. In the meantime, will we figure out how to make a Hackintosh with non-Apple ARM processors and SoC’s? Probably.

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Yes, we all have our opinions, and my opinion is quite different from yours.

What I think is that Apple may release one more Intel MacOS this year, and then no more MacOS Intel. So what I believe is that we will get 3 more years of Intel MacOS support (including security updates). I base my speculation on Apple's stated objective of completing the Apple Silicon transition this year.

And I believe and expect there will be NO MORE new hardware support on Intel MacOS, including any new graphics cards from Nvidia / AMD / Intel. I am happy to be proven wrong on this speculation, however, haha.

As for non-Apple ARM processors, where are the corresponding motherboards and CPUs that we can buy to build such a system? Or are we having to "hack" the ARM PCs currently shipping with Windows on ARM (WoA)?

Without available ARM CPUs and motherboards I don't expect anyone to spend a vast amount of effort trying to hack the Apple Silicon version of MacOS to run on the ARM prebulit PCs, and there is also the drivers problem that pastrychef mentions.

I've built 3 hackintoshes, but won't build anymore. One has been converted over to Linux Mint (the Sky Lake), one is mainly running Windows 11/Linux Mint (my main rig), and the G4 will probably run Linux Mint when support for Intel macOS runs out. There is really only one macOS only app that I still run, but there are replacements on Windows available, just don't like them as much .

OF course Hackintoshes will keep working - as @pastrychef says in post #11 - for a very long time. If you are a hobbyist who wants to run the latest macOS when it is released, then no, your future prospects are bleak. If, however, you enjoy macOS as it is pre-Monterey (my personal opinion) then you can run your PC as long as some secure Internet browsing environment exists. What I mean by this is browser updates. Firefox, Chrome, Edge etc will likely get support longer than Safari if Apple shuts the door on Intel. Indeed Safari has become a bit of a pain already.

I'm currently very happily running High Sierra and love being able to keep using my 32-bit apps. What will be interesting in future is how Apple supports its own App Store. I have a big library in there, all Intel stuff of course. Perhaps I'd be wise to download everything I've bought? That tricky AppleID sign-in needed for downloading might be affected at some point?

Great minds think alike...

dfritchie said:

I've built 3 hackintoshes, but won't build anymore.

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I've built four, and ditto.

UtterDisbelief said:

If, however, you enjoy macOS as it is pre-Monterey...

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Indeed. My "Mini-ITX 4" (at left and below) runs Mojave 10.14.6 under HFS+, since it has an AMD RX 580 and runs 32-bit/64-bit apps. On it I can still play all of Cyan's modern games, from "Myst" on up through "Myst On Line (URU Live)."

UtterDisbelief said:

I'm currently very happily running High Sierra and love being able to keep using my 32-bit apps.

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My "Mini-ITX 1" (Haswell) and "Mini-ITX 3" (Coffeelake) both run High Sierra 10.13.6 under HFS+ and have Nvidia graphics cards.
I gave "Mini-ITX 2" (Skylake) to a now-deceased next door neighbor who ran Big Sur 11.6, to play "Rise of the Tomb Raider" on its AMD Radeon RX 560.

It's been fun and educational, tonymacx86. I can even live with your present ads.