How long will the last Intel Macs be supported? macOS Sonoma gives us some hints

A year ago, we compiled a model list of Macs spanning over two decades, complete with their launch dates, discontinuation dates, and all the available information about the macOS updates each model received. We were trying to answer two questions: How long can Mac owners reasonably expect to receive software updates when they buy a new computer? And were Intel Macs being dropped more aggressively now that the Apple Silicon transition was in full swing?

The answer to the second question was a tentative "yes," and now that we know the official support list for macOS Sonoma, the trendline is clear.

Macs introduced between 2009 and 2015 could expect to receive seven or eight years of macOS updates—that is, new major versions with new features, like Ventura or Sonoma—plus another two years of security-only updates that fix vulnerabilities and keep Safari up to date. Macs released in 2016 and 2017 are only receiving about six years' worth of macOS updates, plus another two years of security updates. That's about a two-year drop, compared to most Macs released between 2009 and 2013.

The last of the Intel Macs are still on track to be supported for longer than the last PowerPC Macs were in the mid-to-late 2000s, but they're getting fewer years of software update support than any other Macs released in the last 15 years.

As we did for Ventura, we'll look at the data and discuss what Apple's motivations might be in the absence of public statements or an update roadmap from the company. We'll also discuss the future of the remaining Intel Macs, which likely only have a year or two of macOS updates to look forward to.

The data

Here are some high-level data points before we begin visualizing things. Some of these haven't changed much since last year since we're working with a pretty lengthy timescale (we've tracked every Mac since the original plastic iMac was released in 1998). My spreadsheet remains available here, in read-only form, so you can pore over the data yourself if you want; we have some notes on data collection at the end of last year's piece.

• For all Mac models tracked, the average Mac receives about 6.6 years of macOS updates that add new features, plus another two years of security-only updates. 2017's crop of Macs will get about 6.3 years of macOS updates, a little under the historical average.
• The average Mac receives updates for about 5.5 years after Apple stops selling it. Buying a Mac toward the end of its life cycle means getting significantly fewer updates.
• The three longest-lived Macs are still the mid-2007 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros, the mid-2010 Mac Pro, and the mid-2007 iMac, which received new macOS updates for around nine years after they were introduced (and security updates for around 11 years).
• The shortest-lived Mac is still the late-2008 version of the white MacBook, which received only 2.7 years of new macOS updates and another 3.3 years of security updates from the time it was introduced. (Late PowerPC-era and early Intel-era Macs are all pretty bad by modern standards).

If you're comparing to last year's data, some of our numbers have shifted a couple of months in one direction or another since we now know the dates of the final security update for macOS 10.15 Catalina and the final non-security update for macOS 12 Monterey (we had previously extrapolated those dates based on Apple's prior behavior). We continue to use extrapolated dates for currently supported macOS versions, assuming that each OS releases in October, receives non-security feature updates for about a year, and receives security-only updates for about two years after that.

Our charts—one for macOS feature updates and one for security-only updates—show an obvious valley between the PowerPC and Intel eras, the last time there was a major switch in processor architectures. With another year of data, we clearly see another shallower-but-sustained dip forming as the Intel era winds down and the Apple Silicon era spins up, a slow decline that begins to be visible for 2013–2015 models but doesn't become historically abnormal until the 2016/2017 model years.

We also looked at the amount of time that Macs receive updates after they're discontinued. Models that are sold for an abnormally long time—like the entry-level 21.5-inch iMac that Apple sold from 2017 to 2021, to pick one example that Sonoma doesn't support—don't get software updates for longer just because Apple sold them for longer. This differs from the timeline Apple uses to provide hardware repair services, which is determined based on "when Apple last distributed the product for sale." This should make you hesitate before you buy the nearly three-year-old M1 MacBook Air today just because it's a little cheaper than the M2 models.

Having established that late-model Intel Macs are receiving fewer updates than older Intel Macs did, the question is whether this is another dip in support that will revert to the seven- or eight-year norm once all Intel Macs are gone or whether this is a new normal and we can expect Apple Silicon Macs to receive fewer years of updates going forward (six-ish years of feature updates has been the norm for iPhone models that Apple has dropped in the last couple releases, including 2015's iPhone 6S and 2017's iPhone 8).

We won't know that for sure until 2026 or 2027, when the first of the M1 Macs start hitting this wall. Apple has been selling M1 Macs like the MacBook Air and iMac for a long time, so I certainly hope that these systems have many years of updates left to come. But the data shows that this isn't a given.

The explanations

It's easy to look at this data and conclude that Apple is chasing a planned obsolescence strategy, which may well be true. But there are nuances, and there are some user benefits (albeit minor ones) to dropping support for old hardware relatively quickly. And Apple also can't control when other companies decide to end support for parts inside those Macs.

The most likely cause for this decline in support for latter-day Intel Macs is also the simplest one: It's simply in Apple's business interests to do so. Most cynically, if your old Mac gets fewer years of software updates, you have one more reason to buy a new Mac. And buyers on a budget have one more reason to consider new or Apple-refurbished Macs rather than used ones.

But Apple's business interests and its customers' interests do have some overlap. Maintaining Intel code alongside Apple Silicon code takes time and money for Apple to do, time and money that is saved when some of that code can be removed. But removing files needed to support those older Macs also has benefits for people using Macs that are still supported. Removing support for multiple old Intel architectures in Ventura saved between 3GB and 4.5GB of disk space on supported Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, compared to the same computers running macOS Monterey.

And users of Apple Silicon Macs will continue to benefit from this as more Intel code is removed from the operating system. Eventually, more app developers will also start dropping Intel support, shipping apps that only contain Apple Silicon code instead of universal ones that contain all the code needed for both.

Since last year, Intel has published a support document that is very explicit about its support timelines for various processor generations (PDF). When processors reach their "End of Servicing Lifetime" (ESL), the company will no longer provide any kind of technical support or security updates for issues affecting those processors. After a later "End of Support" (EOS) deadline, Intel even scrubs support documentation and drivers for those processors from its website.

Intel says it will typically add processors to this page when they're within 12 months of their ESL date. And as it turns out, Intel has generally opted to stop providing updates and support for most processors around six or seven years after their initial release. The 7th-generation "Kaby Lake" processors in the 2017 class of Macs will all hit that ESL date at the end of March 2024.

Even if security support for Intel chips is a consideration, Apple is moving aggressively here. March 2024 is still six months or so after macOS Sonoma's probable release date.

From Apple's perspective, support from Intel means ongoing firmware updates and updated drivers, things that help keep the Mac platform secure and keep it running with minimal crashes, bugs, and instability. As we said a year ago, it's possible to continue running modern operating systems on top of outdated firmware using old drivers, but Apple might not want to be responsible for security flaws, instability, or other problems it can't actually fix without Intel's help, especially for six-year-old systems.

From a user's perspective, though, the fact remains that these older systems with older processors don't become pumpkins just because Intel has decided it is done supporting them.

The writing is on the wall for Intel Macs—but how far away is the wall?

With three years of the Apple Silicon era under our belts (and four OS updates), it's getting a little easier to guess what will happen to these last Intel Macs. With the caveat that this is all still speculation, here are three possible scenarios, listed from most to least likely:

Scenario 1: Apple supports 2019/2020 Intel Macs in macOS 15 and ends Intel support in macOS 16.

Why it could happen: The best predictor of Apple's future behavior in matters like these is usually its past behavior, and each of the last four macOS releases has moved the compatibility cutoff forward by a year or so. The macOS 13 update mostly cut off pre-2017 Macs, the macOS 14 update is cutting off pre-2018 Macs, and macOS 15 could cut off pre-2019 Macs. (The last of the Intel Macs came out in early to mid 2020; I think it's slightly more likely that they will get lumped in with the 2019 models when Apple decides to cut those off.)

Why it might not: Apple could choose to be either more or less generous with future software updates.

Scenario 2: Apple ends all Intel Mac support in macOS 15.

Why it could happen: Apple didn't let PowerPC Macs linger long; it totally cut out all PowerPC support in macOS 10.6 Snow Leopard, released around three years after the end of the Intel transition, and it used the disk space savings as a selling point.

Why it might not: Intel Macs sold way better than PowerPC Macs did, and ending all Intel support aggressively would leave more people out in the cold than ending PowerPC support did. This would also be a quick cutoff for the 2019 and 2020 class of Intel Macs, which in this scenario would get fewer years of software support than any Mac since the mid-2000s. Apple was selling some 2018 Mac minis until earlier this year and the 2019 Mac Pro up until a few weeks ago.

People who bought those Macs between late 2020 and now hopefully did so with the knowledge that the clock was ticking for Intel Macs, but even with the promise of two years of security-only updates, totally ending feature updates for year-old systems seems excessive.

Scenario 3: Apple supports the same Intel Macs in macOS 15 and ends Intel support in macOS 16.

Why it could happen: At this point, there are so few Intel Macs left that they're mostly pretty homogenous in terms of hardware speed, capabilities, and underlying architecture. Almost all of them have Apple T2 chips, and Intel's CPUs during that time were improving relatively little year over year. The same stagnation that led Apple to dump Intel in the first place should theoretically make this entire last batch of Intel Macs pretty easy to support.

Why it might not: The last time a new macOS release supported the same Macs as its predecessor was 2019. And every year since then, there have been Macs on the unlucky side of the cutoff line that were very similar to some of the fully supported Macs. Age, more than hardware capability, seems to be dictating where Apple draws the line for Intel Macs.

Keeping old hardware alive will only get harder

The version of macOS released in 2017, High Sierra, happily installed and ran on Macs from 2009 and 2010. If you bought a Mac that year, you may have done so expecting it to get similarly generous update support. As the sun sets on the Intel Mac era, it's clear that this won't be the case for any of the remaining Intel models, even if they're meeting your day-to-day needs just fine.

What I'd like from Apple in this situation hasn't changed much since last year—pump the brakes, issue security updates for old versions for longer, and communicate better and more in advance about when old hardware is losing support. But the problem isn't limited to Apple's systems.

Microsoft supported—and even encouraged—anyone with a Windows 7 or Windows 8 system to upgrade to Windows 10. You could run a brand-new operating system from 2020 on a 10-year-old system—or something even older with the appropriate hardware upgrades—and you could expect to get most of the same features you'd get running the same software on a brand-new PC (performance, battery life, and other hardware features aside). When it was introduced in 2021, Windows 11 wouldn't officially install on anything made before 2017. (Windows 10 will, however, be supported with security updates until late 2025, several years longer than many Macs.)

Google's ChromeOS is doing a bit better, offering eight years of updates from launch for most post-2020 models and five or six years for pre-2020 models. But when those updates dry up, it's the end of the line, at least as far as "official" support goes.

Users of all of these platforms do have some recourse. You could do an "unsupported" Windows 11 install or switch to ChromeOS Flex. You could rely on community-made hacks and workarounds like the OpenCore Legacy Patcher. Or you could install a Linux distribution of your choosing (last year, Linus Torvalds made headlines for suggesting that the Linux kernel could drop support for 1989's Intel 486 CPU). But each of these options comes with some amount of fussiness and friction, and if you're advising a normal person who just wants to safely use a functioning computer with an interface they're used to, it's almost always easier to advise them to just buy something new.

I feel like I'm yelling on behalf of a tiny pool of people when I talk about this stuff—those who care enough about security and new features to want to stay up to date and who also care about keeping older hardware up and running (and in the continuing utility of secondhand PCs). And those who think that people shouldn't need to switch from the operating system and ecosystem they're comfortable with if they don't want to. I also don't think companies should be obliged to officially support every product they release in perpetuity.

But it's exasperating that it's getting more difficult across the board to keep running up-to-date software on functioning hardware that's more than seven or eight years old—especially as the right-to-repair movement is notching some small but significant victories and as carbon emissions caused in part by the manufacturing and shipping of new hardware are causing more and more visible problems.

Microsoft's strategy for Windows 11, at least so far, might be a good example to emulate. Officially, the company discourages upgrades on unsupported hardware, and the older your hardware is, the harder it is to convince the OS to install. But once the operating system is installed, at least in my experience on "unsupported" systems, it runs fine, and installing new feature and security updates doesn't break it. Go back far enough and you'll still hit hardware that the software simply won't run on, but this kind of approach could work well for recently unsupported systems that still have some life in them. (Microsoft could decide to stop releasing updates for these machines tomorrow, but the current status quo is "install Windows 11 if you insist—it's your funeral.")

This might not be a viable way forward for macOS. For starters, macOS is designed to only run on a limited subset of specific hardware, whereas Windows at its core is more modular and made to run on any system that conforms to PC standards. But I'd still like to see Apple find a way to break free of the software-support binary—to give advanced and technical users and aging but useful hardware a space to exist in between "supported" and "unsupported."