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

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I built my first Hackintosh this year. It was a lot of fun and I will get useful life out of it, but I think the transition will happen more quickly than most folks here are thinking.

Q2 2020: Announce
Q4 2020: MacOS 16, ARM iMac & Mac Mini and Apple Silicon MPX Module for Mac Pro)
Q2 2021: MacBook Air (needed for Aug back to school)
Q4 2021: MacOS 17, ARM 13/16" Laptops, MacPro ARM Motherboard option
Q4 2022: MacOS 18
Q4 2023: MacOS 19 (Last OS with Intel Support)
Q4 2024: MacOS/iPad OS Convergence (no support for Intel Macs)
Q4 2025: NewOS No longer contains Rosetta 2
Q4 2026: Apple ends security patches for MacOS 19 // RIP
macOS 11 already disagreed with this timeline.
 
Speaking realistically
Mid range Mac Laptops and minis will go Apple Silicon. High range though - I doubt that Apple can catch up with Intel where power matters. Current chip is 30% slower then i9-9900 and that is consumer grade CPU. Intel is in the business of making CPUs where Apple.. well they build phones and tablets and different computers. Intel has much more money to invest in CPUs then Apple and much bigger market. And lets not forget AMD putting some heat. So Apple needs to come up with something that can be as powerful as those 20K MacPros today. Do they have the silicon? No.. Will they - I doubt. It really is a matter for market and resources.
However my guts tell me that the next Big Sur will rely heavily on the T2/T3 chip. May be the community would handle the next couple of T chip iteration, but inevitably the lock will come to effect and the Hackintoshes will be locked out at some point from the next macOS. Realistically probably in 3-4 years. And then once the last supported macOS ditches our hardware it will be game over. its all downhill from there. So realistically-optimistically I expect with some luck that the 2021-2022 Intel hardware will be the last to be able to run the latest macOS. For how long will Apple support it? Only god and the T chip can tell. After that it will be probably 5-8 years on aging hardware.
I am writing from a Late 2013 MBP that is capable of running Catalina (though still rocking High Sierra) so yeah.. I guess 2030 will be the last year where Hackintoshes lives would matter. There are hundreds of millions of Intel based Macs so I doubt that even Apple as a greedy company they are will show them the middle finger _that_ soon..
It is not all bad, 8-10 years is a long time. Basically a quarter of a professional life. And plenty of time for Linux to catch up. So from a home user perspective - it is not all bad.
However from a Pro user point of view - may be 4-5 years. As someone who writes code on a daily basis, although not being my primary duty, I use a MBP 16 with 64G Ram and 2TB on the road and a similarly specced workstation at home. In 3-4-5 years I will probably need twice as that as resources. The chances of being able to get a Hackintosh to do that is 50/50 then. So yeah.. time to start thinking about the future..
Also this is an opportunity for some Linux distros to finally understand what makes macOS such a good OS/experience.
I just don't get it in the last iterations of Gnome and Cinnamon.. so much wasted space in the UI.. but thats a different topic
I don't even consider thinking about considering Windows.. but who knows..
 
I just hope this helps with pricing.
It is more likely that Aopple will praise how good they are and better then teh rest of teh world and raise the price.
I am so happy that I am meanwhile independent work CrApple Software
 
Speaking realistically
Mid range Mac Laptops and minis will go Apple Silicon. High range though - I doubt that Apple can catch up with Intel where power matters. Current chip is 30% slower then i9-9900 and that is consumer grade CPU. Intel is in the business of making CPUs where Apple.. well they build phones and tablets and different computers. Intel has much more money to invest in CPUs then Apple and much bigger market. And lets not forget AMD putting some heat. So Apple needs to come up with something that can be as powerful as those 20K MacPros today. Do they have the silicon? No.. Will they - I doubt. It really is a matter for market and resources.
However my guts tell me that the next Big Sur will rely heavily on the T2/T3 chip. May be the community would handle the next couple of T chip iteration, but inevitably the lock will come to effect and the Hackintoshes will be locked out at some point from the next macOS. Realistically probably in 3-4 years. And then once the last supported macOS ditches our hardware it will be game over. its all downhill from there. So realistically-optimistically I expect with some luck that the 2021-2022 Intel hardware will be the last to be able to run the latest macOS. For how long will Apple support it? Only god and the T chip can tell. After that it will be probably 5-8 years on aging hardware.
I am writing from a Late 2013 MBP that is capable of running Catalina (though still rocking High Sierra) so yeah.. I guess 2030 will be the last year where Hackintoshes lives would matter. There are hundreds of millions of Intel based Macs so I doubt that even Apple as a greedy company they are will show them the middle finger _that_ soon..
It is not all bad, 8-10 years is a long time. Basically a quarter of a professional life. And plenty of time for Linux to catch up. So from a home user perspective - it is not all bad.
However from a Pro user point of view - may be 4-5 years. As someone who writes code on a daily basis, although not being my primary duty, I use a MBP 16 with 64G Ram and 2TB on the road and a similarly specced workstation at home. In 3-4-5 years I will probably need twice as that as resources. The chances of being able to get a Hackintosh to do that is 50/50 then. So yeah.. time to start thinking about the future..
Also this is an opportunity for some Linux distros to finally understand what makes macOS such a good OS/experience.
I just don't get it in the last iterations of Gnome and Cinnamon.. so much wasted space in the UI.. but thats a different topic
I don't even consider thinking about considering Windows.. but who knows..
Realistically but too early. Only A12Z from iPad Pro was shown yesterday and we don’t know if the performance of A14 under a desktop level would drastically raise.
 
Ok guys, just want to say that we have at least 3 - 5 years from today to enjoy our community, who will invest after that? We couldn’t tell exact!

I would like to thank this big family
 
Ok guys, just want to say that we have at least 3 - 5 years from today to enjoy our community, who will invest after that? We couldn’t tell exact!

I would like to thank this big family

I will because I use Windows, Linux and I will use Mac OS with my machines until the end of the support, after that well I will not buy a Mac laptop or desktop, but I like the three and for me it will be a bye bye Mac OS. The think is if you only use Mac OS, you have to think really serious to just save your money and buy a ARM Mac but after two years from now, the first ARM Macs It think it would be for domestic use, but I don't think people would do that because if you have a huge project and you need a Machines in the next months, or you buy a Ryzen with Windows (Ryzentosh have a lot of problems that is not in my opìnion an option and with this news I think is more dead than Intel Hackintosh), or an Intel and build your last Hackintosh... by the way, it would be sad that after Apple would end support to the Intel Macs, Windows would not be posible to install in that machines, with that you can extend the life of that machines a lot, but without updated drivers for the devices or not working Bootcamp for new Windows releases, the machines could be really useless after end of apple support, when in a laptop pc from 2006 you can still install windows 10... so sad... but in a Hackintosh you just Install windows and well you can extend the life of that machine...
 
Hello All,
I am not an expert as many programmers here. I think Apple move is wrong but Intel made too many mistakes for too long.That said the road for powerful arm architecture is already done. Especially in the server arena (think Xeon). Amazon and Ampere Computing are a proof of that. The real problem is that apple is too expensive. Now they have the chance of making their own silicon with a big price advantage over Intel, if they make relatively powerful hardware with competitive prices they can conquer the world with the quality of macOS if they don't they will disappear as a telephone company. They have a chance, let's hope they will take it.
 
As someone who made the horrifically bad decision of buying a G5 on a discount when the first Intel Macs were rolling out... It's been YEARS since that decision, and I regret it still. I got a G5 in 2008, when My B&W G3 (upgraded first to a faster G3, then a G4 processor) finally died, I needed a quick replacement. I ended up getting a G5 on the cheap, and regretted that decision till 2013, when I finally made a Hackintosh. The economic crash in 2008-09 destroyed my finances, and it was years before I could afford a proper upgrade.

Back then, it went like this...

2005 Announcement
2006 First Intel Macs (before the year's end, all models were either released or announced for release)
2007 Mac OS 10.5 Leopard is released (final OS supporting PPC)
2008 Intel Macs stop sucking - I make the horrible choice of picking up a G5 this year...
2009 Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard releases (drops support for booting on PPC hardware)
2010 The point when I felt using a G5 was unbearable... By this time, nearly all software support had ended.
2011 Mac OS 10.7 Lion releases (drops Rosetta, killing PPC backwards compatibility)
2011 PPC hardware is declared "vintage". Most support and parts availability is ended
2013 PPC hardware is declared "obsolete". ALL support and parts availability is ended

My take from this, is that by 2025, if we are still running Hackintoshes by then, the software side of things will leave us hating the experience. Sure, we might be able to get it running on some faster hardware for a little while, but eventually, the kernel patches aren't gonna be compatible with new motherboards and CPUs, we won't be able to run new GPUs, the OS will dead end due to the lack of compatibility not only with software, but with the lack of compatibility with newer GPUs.

I found, with my personal experience of owning a PPC in a post PPC world, was that within 3 years of the announcement, almost NO ONE was developing or updating PPC software. Even in 2008, new software was nonexistent. I could only get the occasional update. Even Firefox's PPC build stopped getting complete updates eventually. By 2010, using a G5 as a daily driver was literally hellish. Browsers had long advanced beyond what the G5 and it's out of date software could comfortably run. The spinning beachball of death probably spent nearly as much time on screen than not.

It was a BAD experience!

I'd say, that 3-4 years after the announcement, and 2-3 after the release of the first hardware was the turning point, where inconvenience began transitioning into it being an obstacle. by 5 years after the announcement, there was nothing saving about trying to run a PPC as a main PC. It was unpleasant. I was out of date, with no new software, and web page design vastly outclassing the outdated browsers I was stuck with. I was stuck using this machine in an unbearable state for three more years, till my finances improved and I built my i7 based Hackintosh.

My take from this, is that if history repeats itself, by 2021, most notebooks and minis will be ARM. Some iMacs might be transitioned as well. The Pro models may or may not. No way to really know what Apple has down the pipeline. They did say a 2 year transition, so I expect all macs, including the Pro models will transition by 2022.

Based on the experience from the PPC → Intel transition, I expect Intel software for Macs to entirely dry up by 2023-24. That's maybe one extra year, thanks to Apple claiming a two year transition, instead of the very rapid one year transition, like last time. We will see nothing newly developed, and will likely only see the most minimal of security updates on bigger software. By 2026, I absolutely expect that nearly the entirety of Intel software updates will have completely dried up. If you're still using Intel hardware by 2026, I expect it to be anywhere from an inconvenience to an outright unpleasant experience. Heck... We might even hit that unbearable state by 2025-26.

Now is probably the last time an Intel based Hackintosh makes any sense. After that, it'll just be diminishing returns for a less than pleasant experience.

RIP Hackintosh, you saved me from mediocre hardware 7 years ago. I'll build one more Hackintosh, and then start transitioning to relying on Windows, maybe Linux.
 
Hackintoshing aside, this actually worries me for software developers for mainstream applications and games. For example, will Adobe release CS 2022 completely re-written from the ground up for the Apple ARM CPU? What about Aspyr porting Civilization VII to the new Macs? It's relatively easy for developers to re-compile code from Windows to Mac OS thanks to shared Intel architecture, and I worry that newer releases will be either hampered or non-existent. A good example would be games released on the Intel vs PPC, or Xbox 360 ports on the PS3 (ya I know they are both PPC based but radically different). Sure, the ports "ran" on the latter examples but at a cost and some developers simply didn't even bother because the trade-offs were not worth it from both quality and financial perspectives.


I don't think this is as much of an issue as you think. They announced that Adobe and Microsoft are releasing versions of their software for the new Arm OS. Xcode will compile the code to a universal binary (Intel and Arm) automatically. From a developers point of view, there are not a lot of changes. There wont be a need to re-write everything from the ground up, just a re-compile with a few tweaks, as I understand it.
 
Hi All

My thinking:

(1) Hackintosh machines face the exact same fate as any Intel Mac currently in operation. Does that imply long support? Not in my view, because of see (2).

(2) Apple has proven to be reckless with transitions and cutting backwards compatibility in the past. I think the internal time line is 5 years: No more Intel Macs will be sold in 2 years, 3 years of support, and by 2025 Apple wants Intel to be out of the door completely. Apple will push the transition hard, starting now.

(3) Why is everyone talking about ARM vs Intel performance? The benchmark is AMD. According to what I have read, AMD will release ZEN 3 with 5nm by the beginning of next year. The standard desktop will have 16 cores, higher end machines 32 to 64. I wonder how Apple's Silicon will comepete against AMD. Also Intel will release a new design with chiplets rather sooner than later.

(4) Does (3) matter to Apple? Hardly. They make the money in the average performance retail market where performance needs to be good enough but not top end. I don't think Apple really cares about the relatively small number of MacPro and top of the line iMac and iMacPro customers. Actually, with the market share of Macs below 10%, they might not care too much about the Mac as a whole. What does it matter if drops from 10% to 7%?

(5) If you want to stay with macOS, start saving money today, because one thing is certain: It will be expensive. Any configuration with reasonable amounts of RAM and SSD will cost a fortune, if the past is any indication of the future.

Yes, it sucks. Can't see any good in this transition for the Hackintoshers, and the timeline is tighter than many think, I believe.
 
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