Apple’s macOS 26 Tahoe will be the last major release to support Intel-based Macs. The news was delivered at a virtual Platform State of the Union at WWDC25.
“Apple Silicon enables us all to achieve things that were previously unimaginable, and it’s time to put all of our focus and innovation there,” Matthew Firlik, senior director of developer relations, said on the video.
However, Intel-based Macs will still receive three years of security updates after the launch of Tahoe. Currently-supported Macs utilizing Intel chips include the 16-inch MacBook Pro from 2019, the 13-inch MacBook Pro from 2020 with four Thunderbolt 3 ports, the 27-inch iMac from 2020, and the 2019 Mac Pro.
Those last few Intel Macs will still get most of Tahoe’s enhancements, including the new liquid glass design and improvements to Spotlight search.
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Rosetta 2, the tool that enables Apple Silicon computers to run Intel applications, will be available through macOS 27, but in the video, Firlik urged developers to help users move to native Apple Silicon versions of their apps. Some portions of Rosetta may need to be retained for older games that are no longer updated and rely on frameworks designed for Intel hardware.
It’s not surprising that Apple is phasing out these Intel parts. In fact, to some, the shock is that they lasted this long. These Intel chips are aging, with the last having launched in 2020 (though the server-grade Xeons in the 2019 Mac Pro may still have some life in them). Apple introduced M1 in the fall of 2020, greatly increasing battery life and performance.
The Intel-era chips also kept Hackintosh projects alive. It’s possible that after the macOS 26 release, it will enter a sort of maintenance and security mode, with no future releases targeting the x86 processors.
Apple clearly wants to keep focus on its vertically integrated stack, from operating systems to chips. This move was inevitable, and while people running macOS on Hackintoshes or other unauthorized hardware may be upset, it will streamline Apple’s engineering operations and allocate more development resources to native Apple Silicon applications for the Mac.
