Apple transitioned the Mac lineup to Apple Silicon beginning in 2020, and so they accomplished the transition in 2023. Because the transition began, Apple shortly began dropping assist for Intel Macs on newer variations of macOS. That raises the query: how for much longer will Intel Macs obtain software program assist?
Present Sequoia assist
Apple delivers round 5 years of software program updates for many of their units, so that offers us a good suggestion of how for much longer Intel Macs shall be round. With Apple’s newest launch, macOS Sequoia, there’s only some Intel primarily based machines remaining:
- 2018 Mac mini
- 2019-20 iMac fashions
- 2017 iMac Professional
- 2020 MacBook Air
- 2018-20 MacBook Professional fashions
- 2019 Mac Professional
Practically all the remaining Intel machines had been launched proper earlier than the transition to Apple Silicon, or very near it. The MacBook Pro line has obtained probably the most beneficiant assist to this point, with 2018 fashions nonetheless supported.
Though, that’s seemingly as a result of the 2018, 2019, and base mannequin 2020 MacBook Execs all share the identical (or very comparable) variations of the identical eighth era extremely low energy Intel Core i5 and i7 chipsets. The upper finish 2020 13″ MacBook Professional did take a step as much as tenth era Intel chips, nevertheless.
One attention-grabbing anomaly to that is the iMac Professional, which Apple unveiled at WWDC17 and launched in December of that yr. It’s undoubtedly properly previous the everyday 5-6 years of software program assist, however Apple seemingly desires to cater to the professional clients that is likely to be utilizing that laptop nonetheless.
What’s subsequent?
In all chance, the model of macOS launched in 2025 – macOS 16 – will in all probability nonetheless assist one last wave of Intel Macs, bringing all of them to have at the least 5 years of software program assist.
If I had been to guess, the listing of present Intel Macs we’ve proper now might be fairly just like what they’ll assist with macOS 16. They may drop a pair, just like the 2019 iMac or 2018 Mac mini.
Then, I’d anticipate that macOS 17 in 2026 will in all probability be the primary Apple Silicon unique model of macOS. That may mark 6 years since Apple started its transition and round 6 years since Apple launched the final Intel Mac. It’s going to even be over 3 years since Apple offered the final Intel Mac.
Wrap up
Intel customers ought to seemingly rely their days, seeing as there’s in all probability round 2 years left to make use of your present machine with the most recent macOS model. In fact, Apple will present round 2 years of safety patches after macOS function updates are discontinued.
That being mentioned, there’s quite a few nice offers on the market for Apple Silicon Macs, together with the M2 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM being available for $799.
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