Apple SEEMS to be moving to drop support for non-Xeon-based Intel Mac models by model year (if not the technology differences therein) rather than wholesale dropping support for non-T2 Intel Macs before dropping support for 8th Gen vs. 9th Gen vs. 10th Gen.
For Ventura, it was 2017 Macs or newer. For Sonoma, with the exception of the iMac Pro, it's 2018 Macs or newer. Every non-Xeon Mac released in 2018 had some form of 8th Gen Intel CPU. When you get to 2019, you have a mix of 8th Gen Intel CPUs on the lower-end Macs (21.5-inch iMacs, 13-inch MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs) and 9th Gen Intel CPUs on the higher-end Macs (27-inch iMacs, 15-inch MacBook Pros and the 16-inch MacBook Pros that replaced them later that year). In 2020, every Intel Mac released was some form of 10th Generation (this was limited to the MacBook Air, the 4-port 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the 27-inch iMac).
So, given all of that, my question is this: Is there anything significant, feature-wise about any of the 10th Generation Intel processors over the 9th Generation ones that would have Apple releasing a final Intel-compatible macOS release that only supports 10th Generation Intel based Macs, but not 9th Generation ones? Like, could we have a scenario where the Intel 16-inch MacBook Pro isn't supported but the 2020 4-port 13-inch MacBook Pro is?
I would imagine that, purely from a purely computing prowess standpoint, this would make no sense considering the 9th Gen-based 16-inch MacBook Pro would run rings around the 10th Gen 4-port 13-inch MacBook Pro. But I know that Apple often drops support for devices (Macs, iPads, iPhones, and otherwise) due to features or support in the hardware not being present. Would there be any such features in 10th Generation Intel Core i CPUs that would justify a final Intel compatible release only supporting 2020 models and newer?
For Ventura, it was 2017 Macs or newer. For Sonoma, with the exception of the iMac Pro, it's 2018 Macs or newer. Every non-Xeon Mac released in 2018 had some form of 8th Gen Intel CPU. When you get to 2019, you have a mix of 8th Gen Intel CPUs on the lower-end Macs (21.5-inch iMacs, 13-inch MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs) and 9th Gen Intel CPUs on the higher-end Macs (27-inch iMacs, 15-inch MacBook Pros and the 16-inch MacBook Pros that replaced them later that year). In 2020, every Intel Mac released was some form of 10th Generation (this was limited to the MacBook Air, the 4-port 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the 27-inch iMac).
So, given all of that, my question is this: Is there anything significant, feature-wise about any of the 10th Generation Intel processors over the 9th Generation ones that would have Apple releasing a final Intel-compatible macOS release that only supports 10th Generation Intel based Macs, but not 9th Generation ones? Like, could we have a scenario where the Intel 16-inch MacBook Pro isn't supported but the 2020 4-port 13-inch MacBook Pro is?
I would imagine that, purely from a purely computing prowess standpoint, this would make no sense considering the 9th Gen-based 16-inch MacBook Pro would run rings around the 10th Gen 4-port 13-inch MacBook Pro. But I know that Apple often drops support for devices (Macs, iPads, iPhones, and otherwise) due to features or support in the hardware not being present. Would there be any such features in 10th Generation Intel Core i CPUs that would justify a final Intel compatible release only supporting 2020 models and newer?