Apple Previews macOS 11.0 Big Sur - Available Fall 2020

[cacamaca]

Wow! Unbelievable some of the negative and/or desperate comments in this thread. We can debate this and beat the dead horse until it dies one more time. Nothing changes that Apple moves to Apple Silicon. And nothing changes the fact that we will still be enjoying using CustoMacs for up to the next 7 years and more.

@imikejackson
"Um, Tim Cook said the transition is complete by the end of next year in his part of the keynote. They will NOT create a release of macOS 11 whatever that will install on x86 based computers after that time. Tim didn't sugar coat it or talk in abstracts. He talked in absolute terms."

Of course that makes perfect sense because no one, including Apple, expects a customer who bought a $5,000 Intel iMac or $20,000 Intel Mac Pro today to be able to use it with more than one version of macOS. They expect people who bought a new iMac or Mac Pro today to throw it in the garbage after 1 year.

Here is the fact: I have been aware since last year of the rumour about Apple possibly making their own chips, like so many other people. And I still went and spent over $4,000 to build 3 beautiful CustoMacs listed in the signature. Why? For tons of reasons:

1. My first CustoMacs were build using Snow Leopard. So it was time to upgrade because, despite how beautiful they were still running with Catalina, due to 2nd gen CPU I got to the point where I was not able to change the background in Teams on macOS . It was becoming embarrassing.

2. Intel CustoMacs will be supported by Apple for the next 7 years. More than enough to continue enjoying the Apple experience on a computer; it will be well worth the money spent on the new rigs

3. To some of the folks who have mentioned here that hackintoshing is hard, requires a lot of time, etc. and prefer to go back to Windows I can say that tells me they don't know what they're doing. Hackintoshing has become so easy that it is unbelievable. Try to compare that with the old days in Snow Leopard.

In less than 10 hours since the components of the first new rig were dropped on my porch, I was running Catalina on OpenCore which I have never used before in my life. Yes, that means, assembling the components/building the computer, reading and learning about OpenCore and installing Catalina with all the applications. In the following days I have done some adjustments (USB port limits, OpenCore GUI with OpenCanopy, boot chime, bootstrap). For the other 2 rigs I literally spent only 5 min to get the EFI structure populated by copy/pasting the existing EFI folder and only changing the SN/MLB/SystemUIID and, in one case, the audio layout-id.

I got to the point where I am so excited when a new macOS upgrade is available because it has gotten so boring of just applying updates that are uneventful. The "Automatically keep my Mac up to date" checkbox is enabled on all 3 CustoMacs.

4. To those that want to go back to Windows I say: "Go ahead!". Personally, I have never used a more inefficient OS in my entire life. Nothing integrates as it should, there is no standardization, no rules, every single window looks different, it's a complete chaos on the monitor. And the multiple desktops in Windows 10 it's just a joke. Not mentioning the beautiful experiences with Windows 10 updates over the past year or so.

I have used MS-DOS and Windows since 1990 and it took me only 3 days using OS X (Snow Leopard) to switch over. My current work laptop with Windows 10 catches dust. I do all my office work on macOS even though our company uses Windows equipment. I should thank Microsoft for the fact that their apps work and look better on macOS than on Windows 10.

5. When (and if) the time comes I can't use macOS, Linux will be my first choice. But there are is still a lot of time until then and a LOT of things can happen.

Until then I will continue enjoying using my CustoMacs as much as I can for the next several years knowing that I saved over $13,000 building them . I suggest you do the same

 

[Bustycat]

Come on, guys! The official name with the version number is macOS 11, not macOS XI, MacOS XI, MacOS 11, Mac OS 11, OSX, OS XI, MacOS X 11, Mac OS X 11, ...!

 

[Superbogey]

Come on, guys! The official name with the version number is macOS 11, not macOS XI, MacOS XI, MacOS 11, Mac OS 11, OSX, OS XI, MacOS X 11, Mac OS X 11, ...!

You forgot macOS Double One.

 

[trs96]

And I still went and spent over $4,000 to build 3 beautiful CustoMacs listed in the signature.

Why 3 ? Do they all serve different functions ?

 

[trs96]

You forgot macOS Double One.

Binary too. 1011

They could have used binary to represent the 10 to 11 transition.

 

[cacamaca]

Why 3 ? Do they all serve different functions ?

Yes. One for my son, one for my wife and one for me. Especially now when most of us are working from home.

 

[imikejackson]

I think this last thing you wrote is the real problem and the real obstacle. If Apple has really decided to suppress the Hachintosh community (and I am not very convinced of it, but it is only a very personal thought of an optimist), there will be no way to make new Hackintosh even having all the potential and tools to make them.

To be clear. My belief is that Apple doesn't really care if you create a hackintosh for your personal use. If you create and sell then you will get the attention of their legal department.

Also, to be clear, in my opinion, Apple did not *actively* try to suppress the hackinotsh community by switching to Apple Silicon. It is a by product of their decision to fully integrate the entire hardware/software stack.

 

[gridsketch]

Wouldn't surprise me if a community pops up keeping the latest x86 hardware to future iOS's. Like a reversed Rosetta Stone port emulator built into EFI. It's all just Processors, memory and storage isn't it, code to bypass the architecture difference.

Wouldn't surprise me to see a Chinese knockoff ARM/Mobo copy for less than a real one. China have a lot of fake/real iPhones after all.. There's always some crazy Russians writing code that gets distributed by the community.

Don't underestimate the skills and determination in the hacking community.

Like Huawei? Yikes! I'd be concerned about backdoors and other security issues from Chinese made processors. And ditto "crazy Russian" code.

 

[trs96]

Here's some info as to why Apple decided to eventually say goodbye to Intel and start using variants of their own A-Series systems on a chip (SoCs).

We all know Apple hates leaks. There are leaks all over the internet that are incredibly accurate these days. We know pretty much every last detail about the newest upcoming iPhone every Fall. Some speculate that employees inside Apple leak this info to the people that post the leaks on Twitter, Youtube etc. There's another kind of "leak" of information that Apple just couldn't tolerate anymore and it's coming from Intel. Mainly, the CPUs that they make. Spectre and Meltdown were just the first of many. This is just not acceptable to Apple as they take privacy and security very seriously. I'm certain that any Apple employee that gets caught leaking sensitive info is immediately let go / terminated. The same goes for the product vendors they use so this makes complete sense to start using their own SoCs that they have complete control over.

When using their own SoCs they believe that they can provide a much more locked down product. The following examples are not even half of the total number. You can see them all at Zdnet.com

I've lost count of how many there are now so here's a visual representation of eight of them.

Continuously adding more patches via firmware updates causes hits to CPU performance. They are mostly just bandaids for more serious problems in the chip design. Why Intel is not producing a better product is debatable. People that work at Intel could tell you but rarely ever make any public statements as to the cause of this security nightmare.

 

[imikejackson]

@imikejackson
"Um, Tim Cook said the transition is complete by the end of next year in his part of the keynote. They will NOT create a release of macOS 11 whatever that will install on x86 based computers after that time. Tim didn't sugar coat it or talk in abstracts. He talked in absolute terms."

Of course that makes perfect sense because no one, including Apple, expects a customer who bought a $5,000 Intel iMac or $20,000 Intel Mac Pro today to be able to use it with more than one version of macOS. They expect people who bought a new iMac or Mac Pro today to throw it in the garbage after 1 year.

Fairly sure that *none* of us have access to the inner workings of Apple and what they expect. We debate topics here on the forums. But let's just lay out some items that will come to pass, as stated by Apple, in some finite amount of time.

* Apple will still sell Intel based machines for another 2 years.
* Apple will start selling Apple Silicon based machines by the end of this year.
* Apple will continue to support Intel based machines for a finite amount of time into the future
* Apple will *stop* supporting Intel based machines at some point in the future with some future release of macOS.

At this very specific time of writing that is what we were told by Apple. We have their past transitions to use as reasonable timelines and evidence as to what is very likely going to happen for new equipment.

Your current machine, barring a hardware failure, will continue to run your current software stack *forever*. What is going to change at some point in the future is that you will most likely *not* be able to get an upgrade for your favorite piece of software as that software developer will either charge a price you don't want to pay or have minimum system requirements that does not include your hackintosh. I don't know when that will happen for some random hackintosher. We will each hit our wall at some point.

We are talking years though before that really starts to happen for most of us. Some will hit it sooner than others. A lot can happen in those intervening years. Maybe someone does come up with a board that has an ARM on it that is powerful enough to run macOS. Maybe the community figures out how to run macOS on an ARM design. I think one of the major obstacles will be getting past Apple's security measures like T2 chips. I don't see Apple completely locking down macOS like they do the iPhone/iPads but I see it as a reasonable obstacle to get around. Let's look at the rest of the major system components to see what problems might occur.

First the obvious ones that don't matter: Case, Power Supply, Optical Drive.

CPU: Apple Silicon has its roots in ARM, but have they changed it enough?
RAM: Apple would most likely use industry standard RAM.
GPU: Apple will definitely use an in-house GPU design, lets call this Apple Silicon Integrated GPU. They will need something faster in all likely hood. I don't see any reason (based on history) for them to turn away from AMD. They will contract with AMD for a custom high end GPU chipset that will not be sold on to consumers. AMD will certainly sell something close to consumers but not that exact one. Will it matter like in the current cases for AMD GPUs? Maybe? Maybe not.
Wireless, BlueTooth: Probably will stick with something from Broadcom since they have not moved off of that in the past. BUT they are starting to make their own U1 wireless chips and it would surprise me if they stayed out of the 802.xx and BlueTooth forever. My context was something "built into" or "internal" to a hackintosh system. Somebody will come up with a USB 802.xx/BlueTooth device that runs perfectly fine on Apple Silicon based systems.
SSD/Hard Drive: Apple will continue to make their own SSDs using their own controllers. Any other SSD/Hard drive should still continue to work on Apple Silicon based systems. We will still have to hack in the TRIM support. Spinners still work out of the box.

I intend to use my hackintosh until I can't. Due to my reliance specific kinds of software that forces me into the latest macOS systems my time will come sooner than most hackintoshers. So let's make the most of these years that we have left.