MP 7,1 Guess when macOS will stop supporting 7,1

[prefuse07]

A competition regulator holding that marketing (not just the sales brochure, but all the publicity done about it) a peripheral as reprogrammable, and reconfigurable, and then not providing reprogramming or reconfigurability amounts to a bait & switch.

If this were to really happen, I would literally cry out joy!

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Something about a toaster fridge seems to apply. And letting each thing be itself. Of course one would need to care about and refer to history to understand the meaning there.

Something about “ bringing what we’ve learned from iPhone and iPad, back to the Mac” also applies.
Also, despite the increasing similarities between macOS and iPadOS, the Mac is still very much its own distinct thing.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Something about “ bringing what we’ve learned from iPhone and iPad, back to the Mac” also applies.
Also, despite the increasing similarities between macOS and iPadOS, the Mac is still very much its own distinct thing.

Sure, it’s more like it, but not. Aka a UI disaster.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Sure, it’s more like it, but not. Aka a UI disaster.

No specifics, no actual complaints or constructive criticism, just “Apple bad, Tim bad”.

The old system preferences app was terrible in my experience, but that’s mostly because I use a lot of apple’s accessibility features, a lot of which didn’t work very well with the different custom preference panes.
Now that there’s a unified look across all of the system settings menus, it is way more easy for me to get around.
The fact that the settings are now arranged in the same order as the iPhone and iPad also doesn’t hurt, and makes switching between those devices just that much more easy.

I will concede that it was kind of shortsighted on apples part to not at least implement an optional “gridview” that makes navigation act a little bit more like the old system preferences app, but over all, a good change.

As a fan of the old dashboard, the new widgets work just as well, and the fact that you can drag an iPhone widget right onto your desktop is a very nice touch.

I don’t even know how to respond to the complaint about the stickers in the Messages app. Sure it’s a novelty feature, but one clearly a lot of people like. How is it any less stupid then back in the day when Steve would dedicate 15 minutes of each presentation to give another demo of iChat and Photo Booth filters and backgrounds?
There is no difference, other than the apps are called Messages and FaceTime now.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I think your comments need no further comments from me.

 

[prefuse07]

I think your comments need no further comments from me.

Yeah, don't engage him anymore. He has derailed this thread too much already with koolaid. Better to just ignore and let it get back to the original point.

 

[SDAVE]

I almost get the impression you can't wait for Apple to dump Intel support...

I think you overestimate how much Intel-specific code is in macOS and the impact it has on Apple Silicon performance. At this point macOS is a 20-years mature, multi architecture OS having run production on three architectures (four if you count NeXT). Processor-specific code should be pretty well localized. It really should be just limited to parts of the kernel and devices drivers and key libraries/frameworks (e.g. Accelerate). And it's all already written and shouldn't need to be changed. Nor does it appear that Apple is holding Apple Silicon back for the sake of feature parity between the two platforms.

The other heavily processor-specific component is the compiler. Since they use LLVM and x86_64 probably has the greatest market share of LLVM users, I doubt that team has any interest in dropping support for it.

I can see why they would want to drop Rosetta as its already served its main purpose and its value declines ever day. However doing so before they drop the whole Intel platform would really screw with smaller developers' ability to support legacy customers. Plus I believe Parallels/etc and Docker use it to support Intel binaries from those platforms and dropping support for it just excludes whole classes of users from the Mac platform.

Again already written and working. About the only thing missing is AVX/AVX2 support but at this point there's no real upside to adding that so my guess is they will just leave alone until the end. Maybe move from a general user optional download to a developer optional download (e.g. into some version of Xcode tools).

Then every version of macOS since at least 10.4 has had some sort of Universal app support and doubt they will actually remove Universal support from the platform. They will just drop the ability to generate new Intel binaries in some future version of Xcode meaning it will only be able to generate Universal binaries for one architecture. But I doubt that will be noticeable to Apple Silicon users (except perhaps somewhat smaller application sizes).

With Venutra, Apple dropped support for all systems with pre-Skylake processors along with I am sure lots of other legacy hardware. Of the remaining platforms (I count 10), the Mac Pro is probably the most complicated to support but the one that should be the last to be dropped based on both its last retail sale and nature of its customers.

If I were a betting man, I'd say these platforms will drop out of macOS before the Mac Pro 2019 (in order of likelihood):
-iMac Pro
-MacBook Air8,x
-MacBook Pro15,x

I've been with Apple since the 90s and know how they move. They don't really go by logic, they are a very pragmatic company. If it doesn't make sense for them, they do a switcharoo.

I personally think this year is the last year they will support all intel machines. I was there during the PPC to Intel transition and it was a quicker roll over actually.

Also remember, the 2024 Mac Pro is going to be released this year as well. It's a niche product for them, why would they keep Intel support beyond this year doesn't make sense to me.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I've been with Apple since the 90s and know how they move. They don't really go by logic, they are a very pragmatic company. If it doesn't make sense for them, they do a switcharoo.

I personally think this year is the last year they will support all intel machines. I was there during the PPC to Intel transition and it was a quicker roll over actually.

Also remember, the 2024 Mac Pro is going to be released this year as well. It's a niche product for them, why would they keep Intel support beyond this year doesn't make sense to me.

I think they are under more scrutiny these days and dropping support more quickly won’t help perceptions in the multiple antitrust investigations pending against them.

But we are all guessing here and your guess may well be better than others.

 

[SDAVE]

I think they are under more scrutiny these days and dropping support more quickly won’t help perceptions in the multiple antitrust investigations pending against them.

But we are all guessing here and your guess may well be better than others.

Well let's hope haha
I have a 7,1 and a maxed out M1 Max MacBook Pro and I use both for production work. The longer the 7,1 lives obviously the better. But usually Apple drops support after 5 years.

I really don't want to go the "hacky" way of using OpenCore or whatever is down the line. I also boot into Windows 11 to play some video games late at night with the 6900xt. I guess I will just dock my M1 Max and build a small SFFPC for gaming (rarely I do this, I'm in macOS 99% of the time). But then I have to deal with KVM switches etc since Studio Displays have only 1 input & Apple magic keyboard is BT only :\

 

[PowerMike G5]

Yes, like ZombiePhysicist mentioned, they are under a lot more scrutiny and a much larger company then the PPC days. Apple's Mac Intel user base seems to be 4 times larger than its PPC user base during that previous architecture transition. There are many political reasons to keep Intel support going for a bit longer.

The 7,1 was just discontinued 6 months ago. They're going to have to provide some OS support, even if its shorter than normal. I suspect 2025/2026.

I too have a 7,1 and a maxed out M1Max MBP for production work. I bought my 7,1 the day it was announced and now I will just try to maximize its life till it is no longer supported. Its been a really great platform and I hope Apple continues the innovate with the Mac Pro. Remember when it was first announced, it was a really great effort at reversing what was done with the 6,1. Hopefully the will is there to innovate with it again with AS, whatever that can look like.

 

[sunnyjohn2]

I bought my first Mac in 2002 - the wonderful G3 anglepoise. It lasted ten years. Next came a Mac mini and that kept going for eight years. I now have a 21.5 iMac and I expect it to last me eight years. My history suggests that Apple expect their products to last and would be unlikely to make them redundant before their end-of-life. I hope I'm right!

 

[avro707]

Well let's hope haha
I have a 7,1 and a maxed out M1 Max MacBook Pro and I use both for production work. The longer the 7,1 lives obviously the better. But usually Apple drops support after 5 years.

I really don't want to go the "hacky" way of using OpenCore or whatever is down the line. I also boot into Windows 11 to play some video games late at night with the 6900xt. I guess I will just dock my M1 Max and build a small SFFPC for gaming (rarely I do this, I'm in macOS 99% of the time). But then I have to deal with KVM switches etc since Studio Displays have only 1 input & Apple magic keyboard is BT only :\

That’s one of the reasons I got the 7,1, it is very solid and I don’t need a degree in OpenCore workarounds. Two 5,1s with Opencore is enough excitement.

My only plans for the 7,1 are upgrading the GPUs and ram. I keep a watch for the W3275M CPUs but they are very rare and expensive.

 

[bzgnyc2]

I've been with Apple since the 90s and know how they move. They don't really go by logic, they are a very pragmatic company. If it doesn't make sense for them, they do a switcharoo.

I personally think this year is the last year they will support all intel machines. I was there during the PPC to Intel transition and it was a quicker roll over actually.

Also remember, the 2024 Mac Pro is going to be released this year as well. It's a niche product for them, why would they keep Intel support beyond this year doesn't make sense to me.

I switched to Mac with 10.1 so I have some idea of how Apple works too. The transition from PPC to Intel was quick but even then the PPC hardware sold in 2006 was supported by the OS until fall 2009. Equivalently that would mean hardware sold into 2023 (Mac Pro) would be supported by the OS until fall 2026.

And that would assume they want to do it that quick again and the legal and political landscape hasn't changed. They are now a $3T company and we're talking about ~$50B in hardware, some of which is < 1 year old. Other of which was sold to government, universities, and enterprises with whom they may have contractual obligations (some of which may have been put in place by organizations felt burned by the fast PPC->Intel transition). Large organizations don't like it when you obsolete their purchases faster than the agreed upon lifecycle even if the new stuff is "really really great".

While it may not make any sense to you to continue support beyond this year, pragmatically there are many other considerations than what is likely a immaterial number of engineering FTE still dedicated to the platform (I bet the number of Apple engineers with Intel in their title or would otherwise disappear once support is dropped is actually pretty small) and the clean lines of some product managers support matrix.

We're also assuming there is a final decision sitting in a vault somewhere at Apple. My guess is Apple doesn't even know yet. Large organizations, which Apple surely is now, have a way to kicking decisions like this down the road as long as they can. Sure there are people in Apple with strong opinions and probably a PowerPoint somewhere but decisions like these aren't really final until that developer beta ships without any Intel support.

However, as one last datapoint, people on the OCLP thread are complaining about how Sonoma/Intel is now chock full of AVX/AVX2 instructions. It would be an interesting choice to put in a lot of Intel-specific optimizations only to drop all support for the platform 1 year later.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I switched to Mac with 10.1 so I have some idea of how Apple works too. The transition from PPC to Intel was quick but even then the PPC hardware sold in 2006 was supported by the OS until fall 2009. Equivalently that would mean hardware sold into 2023 (Mac Pro) would be supported by the OS until fall 2026.

And that would assume they want to do it that quick again and the legal and political landscape hasn't changed. They are now a $3T company and we're talking about ~$50B in hardware, some of which is < 1 year old. Other of which was sold to government, universities, and enterprises with whom they may have contractual obligations (some of which may have been put in place by organizations felt burned by the fast PPC->Intel transition). Large organizations don't like it when you obsolete their purchases faster than the agreed upon lifecycle even if the new stuff is "really really great".

While it may not make any sense to you to continue support beyond this year, pragmatically there are many other considerations than what is likely a immaterial number of engineering FTE still dedicated to the platform (I bet the number of Apple engineers with Intel in their title or would otherwise disappear once support is dropped is actually pretty small) and the clean lines of some product managers support matrix.

We're also assuming there is a final decision sitting in a vault somewhere at Apple. My guess is Apple doesn't even know yet. Large organizations, which Apple surely is now, have a way to kicking decisions like this down the road as long as they can. Sure there are people in Apple with strong opinions and probably a PowerPoint somewhere but decisions like these aren't really final until that developer beta ships without any Intel support.

However, as one last datapoint, people on the OCLP thread are complaining about how Sonoma/Intel is now chock full of AVX/AVX2 instructions. It would be an interesting choice to put in a lot of Intel-specific optimizations only to drop all support for the platform 1 year later.

I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these AVX instructions do not come free just with recompilation of existing applications. Meaning the compiler does it by default because they Just happen to be using an upgraded compiler.

 

[padams35]

For reference: Apple's Dishonorable Records for Intel currently stand at:

Fastest drop from introduction:
- #1 4 years, 5 months (Early 2008 Macbook)
- #2 4 years, 6 months (Early 2008 Macbook Air)
Fastest drop from replacement option:
- #1 3 years, 3 months (2007 Xserve)
- #2 3 years, 4 months (2007 Mac Mini)
Fastest drop from discontinue:
- #1 1 year 11 months (2017 21.5" iMac)
- #2 3 years 2 months (2017 Macbook Air)

The MacPro7,1 might not be guaranteed MacOS 15 support by Introduction date, but the 2020 5K iMac will make it into MacOS15 implying Intel support. Suggesting Apple will support the last iMac but not the last MacPro sounds implausible.

Going by discontinue date suggests the MacPro7,1 will support new releases of MacOS at least until May 2025. Again, MacPro7,1 will run MacOS 15.

Counting from 'replacement option' might imply support out to September 2026: good enough MacOS 16 but not setting any records if dropped by MacOS 17 with an October or November public release. However if Apple considers the 2022 Mac Studio a valid replacement option the countdown could expire June 2025, only good enough to guarantee MacOS 15 support.

Apple might be willing to break one record but I don't see them breaking all three. So, 100% chance MacPro7,1 will run MacOS 15. At worst Apple might pull a Mojave and drop Polaris/Vega drivers, but MacPro7,1 will have an update path into MacOS 15.

As for MacOS 16... lets see if the Late 2018 MBA and Early 2019 iMac receive MacOS 15 support. If both do the odds are good. If both get dropped then MacPro7,1 is probably getting cut from MacOS16.

 

[H2SO4]

by virtue of it being marketed and sold as a reconfigurable, and reprogrammable peripheral, for which they never offered a reconfiguration or reprogramming.

This part here is what regulators need to get more involved in. That applies to any market sector.
Blatant lies and embellishments need to be clamped down on.

 

[throAU]

Given the 2019 model has up to 1.5TB of RAM capacity and apple silicon currently has nothing close, i suspect it will be supported until there is an equivalent. Because there are niche use cases where large RAM capacity is a thing.

intel will still be supporting the CPU and chipset until at least 2026, and AMD will no doubt be supporting the GPUs to a similar time frame.

i do not believe the current 2023 mac pro is what was originally intended as a replacement - because it is weak-sauce in terms of CPU and RAM capacity vs. what i believe apple would have aimed for. its got about half the cores/GPU cores and associated RAM capacity. and you can even see the big empty space on the board where it belongs.

 

[AdamBuker]

As a fan of the old dashboard, the new widgets work just as well, and the fact that you can drag an iPhone widget right onto your desktop is a very nice touch.

I'll have to disagree with you there. Dashboard widgets in my experience are far more interactive, easier to install, and easier to place them where you want them and are visible only when you need to use them. I still drive a PowerMac G5 for some tasks and using widgets in Leopard vs Sonoma is night and day.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

I'll have to disagree with you there. Dashboard widgets in my experience are far more interactive, easier to install, and easier to place them where you want them and are visible only when you need to use them. I still drive a PowerMac G5 for some tasks and using widgets in Leopard vs Sonoma is night and day.

I could literally never figure out how to add them, at least while running a screen reader.

 

[profdraper]

https://www.macintouch.com/post/37381/macos-sonoma-forced-installs/

 

[mattspace]

I'll have to disagree with you there. Dashboard widgets in my experience are far more interactive, easier to install, and easier to place them where you want them and are visible only when you need to use them. I still drive a PowerMac G5 for some tasks and using widgets in Leopard vs Sonoma is night and day.

Also, they can do thngs, rather than just show things - eg the old calculator, and converter widgets. Swipe to the right, and there's my calculator, my converter etc, none of this having to go over to the dock (on another screen) launch/switch the appetc.

 

[smckenzie]

https://www.macintouch.com/post/37381/macos-sonoma-forced-installs/

Totally happened to me today.

 

[mattspace]

Totally happened to me today.

I wonder if it is a UI/UX issue, because there's been security updates issued today as well.

I have "Security Updates Only" set, and while I did get the Sonoma notification a couple of days ago, I "X"ed it, rather than responding to the options on the notification.

 

[H2SO4]

I wonder if it is a UI/UX issue, because there's been security updates issued today as well.

I have "Security Updates Only" set, and while I did get the Sonoma notification a couple of days ago, I "X"ed it, rather than responding to the options on the notification.

Assuming that have a recent clone, those that suffered this can boot from it and see what version that was?

 

[seggy]

Not to mention why they took such an aggressive position AGAINST their own customer base!

All of this just proves how incompetent and single-minded their leadership has become. I mean, they literally have the resources to do whatever they want, and really innovate, yet this is the way they're sinking the ship... All he cares about is $$$, a true bean counter with no vision. I truly hope there is some real change soon, but again, highly unlikely.

Not true.

Apple has always been aggressive about updates. PowerPC was pretty aggressively fast for example. Not that abandoning 68K cruft did much for stability - PowerPC was the point where I was regularly being Ellen Feiss'd long before Apple flat-out lied about Windows and amazingly got away with it (I guess since Microsoft would have had to say something along the lines of "only morons would experience that").

So was the Intel cutover - PowerPC support fell off a cliff once that happened, tho you could argue it didn't really matter because since they were so slow compared to Intel (far more than any Intel-Apple SoC comparison now), and to compound that flagship G5 Pros had the usual poor Apple engineering but this time involved water, many of them became unusable pretty fast lol

One could even argue the Intel period was an outlier for Apple when it came to the Pros - they couldn't really justify not updating them.

Maybe the reason some people feel this more these days is that more people have Macs whose income hasn't grown with their Mac owning aspirations...? I mean, for one I see tons of '08-'10 Pros in signatures here and I really doubt there's anyone in Windows-land still rocking a Precision T7400 for example and doing anything actually worthwhile with it. Similarly I'd expect a 6-7 year viable period for any of my Windows workstations, especially since Windows 11. So current Mac update cycles - especialy given that they've completed the architecture change - aren't that unexpected.