macOS Tahoe 26 Will Be The Last Release For Intel Macs, Rosetta 2 Support Ends With macOS 28

Following Apple’s introduction of macOS Tahoe 26 earlier this week, the company has confirmed that the days of Intel-powered Macs are numbered: Tahoe will be the final major release for these systems, with macOS 27 and beyond set to serve Apple Silicon-based Macs only. The transition will finally conclude with the release of macOS 28, as per its documentation.

macOS Tahoe 26: End Of The Road For Intel Macs

In case you’re unaware, Apple kickstarted its transition to Arm-based architecture when it introduced M1 chip back in 2020, which marked the end for future Mac models powered by Intel processors. Due to the fundamental difference between these two processors that is the instruction set architecture (ISA), the company developed Rosetta 2 as a translation layer for apps developed in Intel Macs to continue functioning, though this was meant as a transitional step to give developers time to work on Arm-native version of their apps.

As such, Apple has notified developers that Rosetta 2 will be available “for the next two major macOS releases”, which includes macOS Tahoe 26 and macOS 27. When macOS 28 arrives in 2027, Rosetta’s functionality will be removed, though the company noted that “a subset of Rosetta functionality” will be retained to support “older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks.”

For those still running on Intel Macs, the feature updates ends right here, but you are still eligible for another three years of security updates. macOS Tahoe 26 will be available to four Intel models: 16-inch MacBook Pro (2019), 13-inch MacBook Pro (2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 Ports), 27-inch iMac (2020), and Mac Pro (2019).

Pokdepinion: End of an era.