macOS 27 to Drop Intel Mac Support, Making Apple Silicon the Only Path Forward

Apple has confirmed that macOS 26 “Tahoe” will be the last version to support Intel-based Macs, with macOS 27 and onward reserved for Apple silicon and the A-series MacBook Neo. The company told developers that future macOS releases will focus entirely on its own ARM-based chips—a change first announced at last year’s WWDC and now circulating again ahead of this year’s conference.
With this change, owners of Intel Macs that qualify for macOS 26—including the 2019 16‑inch MacBook Pro, 2020 13‑inch Intel MacBook Pro, 2020 27‑inch iMac, and 2019 Mac Pro—will stay on Tahoe for the rest of their lifespans. Though these systems will not upgrade to macOS 27, Apple is expected to provide security updates for them for a few years, as it does with the current and a few previous macOS versions. The brand likely won’t phase out Intel Mac support completely until 2028.
Older Intel Macs that already dropped off the compatibility list remain on earlier macOS releases and do not see any change from this announcement.
For app developers, macOS 27 marks a clear split between Intel hardware and Apple silicon. Developers can continue to support macOS 26 on Intel for some time, but newer apps and updates will increasingly target macOS 27 and later on Apple silicon only.
Rosetta 2, which lets Apple‑silicon Macs run Intel-only software, is only temporary: Apple has warned that it will remove Rosetta in a future macOS release, though reports differ on whether that happens with macOS 27 or 28, per this Ars Technica post from last year.
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