I was vaguely aware that Tahoe was the last MacOs that would support Intel based processors. However, what I hadn't realised is that in MacOs 28 the Rosetta compatibility layer for Intel based applications will be removed. This means that any applications that aren't compiled for Apple Silicon will no longer work.
I've noticed a couple of apps pop up with a warning about this pointing me at this article.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/102527?cid=mc-ols-rosetta-article_102527-macos_finder-52526201
I'm not sure if this is a big deal or not. I think any vaguely new apps will be fine, but I thought it might be worth posting about it here in case anyone was unaware of this.
Oddly enough one of the apps complaining about this was a little tool I vibe coded for myself a month or two ago. I presume this was just a dependency it was using but it does illustrate that just because something is new does not necessarily mean it won't be affected. (But no, let's not go down the vibe coding rabbit hole in this particular thread.)
I suspect this is ultimately a good thing unless you happen to depend on something that is no longer being updated.
Comments
Apple had better fix logic then!
You still cannot use ARA plug-ins with logic running under Apple Silicon… For some reason.
re: Apple had better fix logic then!
One of the main reasons apart from bootcamp why I will not be upgrading to any of the newer macs. And it's not only logic. I know plugins and some I use are not ready for the apple m1 through m4 chips. I'll keep my mapbook pro 2015 thanks. Still runs fine, haven't had anything happen to it.
Why?
I don't know why Apple does this. Is it just for the sake of moving technology forward, or is it just because they can? What would it hurt them to allow people to just use the Rosetta 2 layer to run indefinitely? It would not hurt them. It didn't hurt them to allow us to run 32-bit apps when they removed them in Catalina. I think they do this just to push things forward and force people to use new stuff. I guess it's never really changed because Apple has always been like this, but it just frustrates me every time they do something like that because Microsoft and Linux prove that you don't need to get rid of backwards compatibility just to have an operating system that's stable and fast. Various Linux distributions support hardware that's 20 years old. Windows doesn't care about how old an application is, or if it's 32-bit, 64-bit, ARM, or X86; it just runs the app. On top of that, VoiceOver on the Mac is a crap show and has been for a long time. I think I'll be staying on Windows for the time being. I love macOS, but I don't love the way Apple treats it.
Apple
You play by the rules in Apple land or GTFO! This is how it's always been, and how it will more than likely continue to be. Rosetta will be fully supported in macOS 27 which will receive security support until late 2029. Developers should know what the rules are in Apple land, and they'll have 9 years to make their apps compatible.
Re: Windows.
How are those 16-bit apps working for all y'all?
These things happen. And pretty much everybody does it, at some point or another. Apple silicon, dumb name, has existed since late 2020. It's not like your favorite plugin/app developers were unaware of this or something.
If you're interested in why Apple's doing this, maybe look into it. Because I'm going to guess that, whether you agree with it or not, like 99.99999756% of all other cases, there's an answer other than "I just proposed a dumb conspiracy that does nothing but screw us over" that's motivating the change.
That doesn't mean that answer's right either, like yeah, Apple really has to do this if they want to do something else they want to do. I'm just saying, they're only doing it as a conspiracy to force us all to buy new stuff *probably* isn't it.
I did a bit of digging.
How do you feel about AI? Because while I didn't find a specific reason, the general idea people seem to have is that the older stuff, including the M1, just can't handle AI, which Apple wants to integrate more. Also:
https://www.pcmag.com/news/apple-confirms-end-of-support-for-intel-macs-after-macos-tahoe
We knew about this, or could have found out, by June of last year. From what I can see speculation about this happening was going on pretty much since the M1. So it's not like developers didn't have plenty of warning.
Developer Delays and Changes
It is not just in the Mac world where some developers seem to have a “meh, I’ll get to it eventually” attitude.
When the media player app Kodi switched from Python 2 to Python 3, it broke a majority of its add-ons, and many of those add-ons still do not work to this day.
Granted, Kodi is open source, and add-on developers usually create things because they want to, not because they are being paid to maintain them. So in that sense, it is a slightly different ballgame.
But the principle is still the same.
It is not as if developers have not been warned ahead of time. It is not as if anyone is saying, “We are making these changes, and you have one week to update your apps.”
From what I can see, developers have usually been given ample time to prepare for these changes. NVDA has done the same thing with its add-ons: developers were given plenty of notice to make the necessary updates.
I am not a developer, so I do not know why some developers drag their feet on these things. I am also not a Mac user. But the principle still applies.
Why drag your feet when you know the change is coming?
I know that, for some apps, the problem is much bigger than a quick fix. They may be broken so deeply that the developer either has to rebuild a large part of the app from the ground up, or just start again from scratch.
It is also interesting that one of the posts mentions vibe-coded apps. You would think an AI would know to use the correct tools and frameworks for the target platform, but that probably depends heavily on the prompt.
For example, if your prompt does not clearly say something like, “This app needs to work with [insert tool], on [insert operating system], using the latest supported version,” then the AI may not make those assumptions correctly.
So even with AI-generated code, the same basic problem still applies: developers need to pay attention to the platform they are building for, the tools they are relying on, and any upcoming changes that could break things.
Re: why
Keeping backwards compatibility does come with a cost. It will make the OS more complicated and adds more random moving parts. I would imagine from a support point of view, having newer Macs still running software not designed for it is going to harm performance and makes the Macs look worse. Moving on will allow them to delete a load of legacy code and should make things easier to maintain. So yes, this will definitely, definitely make VoiceOver perfect from MacOs 28 onwards. Definitely.
I was surprised to find I was running the Intel version of Java yesterday. Whether fixing it makes a difference or not I'll find out. But I think it's the price of progress.
Microsoft have always taken the direct opposite view and I think it sometimes harms them because they end up needing to support every configuration of everything forever. There's definitely a bit of a balancing act.
I doubt it's AI related. I suspect this was always the plan. You only ever get so many software updates with the Mac anyway, so they were never going to support Intel Macs forever once everything transitioned over. My Intel iMac has been stuck on Ventura. That is a little different to removing the ability to run old apps on newer hardware.
I'm personally OK with this. But then if I find an app that won't work that I depend on then I will obviously completely change my mind and be outraged about it.