It’s time to upgrade those old Intel Macs
IT admins and CIOs should be aware that 2026 is effectively the final year of support for Intel-based Macs. Apple told us so at WWDC last year when it said, “macOS 26 (Tahoe) will be the final release for Intel Macs.”
That means macOS 27 won’t support Intel chips.
When Apple announced its plans, they might have seemed long enough away for some IT purchasers to ignore them. But with only a few months to go until Intel Macs lose support, it’s now time to think again and upgrade any old Intel-based Macs you or your business may still be using.
Five years of Intel support
It’s hard to complain about the cadence of this part of the transition to Apple Silicon. Apple has been scrupulously fair in its approach to Intel Mac support, which has been available for five years — or about as long as most business users use their computers. The first M1 Macs appeared in November 2020.
Apple also says it will continue to provide security updates for some Mac models for another two years, which might help. You can’t wait forever, though, as the update cadence basically means those Intel Macs will cease to be secure in 2028.
It is important to recognize that there are other significant reasons to upgrade. Equipped with Apple Silicon chips, Apple’s latest machines are certainly the best available platforms for AI development and use and are about to get even better, thanks to the Google Gemini partnership.
They are often even faster at running Intel-based Mac apps thanks to the Rosetta emulation the OS supports — these Macs are just that much better than what they replaced. Apple will remove most Rosetta features in macOS 28 in 2027.
AI needs more than Intel Macs can provide
Ultimately, AI adoption exposes the weakness of those Intel machines, which just aren’t up to the demands it makes. AI requires three vital ingredients: processor performance, energy consumption, and memory.
Intel-based Macs just don’t compete with the Macs Apple offers today – even a five-year-old M1 Mac mini leaves its Intel equivalent gasping in the dust. Apple Intelligence (and many third-party AI services) also thrive on use of the Neural Engine, which is only found in M-series chips.
The bottom line is that even as Dell is putting a stop to its “AI PC” marketing push, people are buying far more capable and affordable Macs instead. So, if you want to use future technologies in your business, there’s only one direction to take.
The other reason to upgrade comes from outside Apple.
Out with the old…
Developers also follow industry trends, and there are already many tools that rely on performance-driven AI that only function on M-series Macs. You’ll also find a growing number of enterprise-grade tools such as real-time XDR (Extended Detection and Response) services that only work to full effect when run on AI-capable hardware. (Intel Macs really struggle to run the AI that enables such services; the machines run hot and suffer throttled performance.)
And in the current tense threat environment, business partners won’t accept that you’re not running advanced security protection because you rely on a couple of old Intel Macs (or, worse, Windows 10 PCs) you haven’t upgraded yet.
Developers are also responsive to the smash hit success of Apple Silicon Macs. That success means many of them have ceased working on their Intel Mac applications to focus on Apple Silicon, where the market is going. That means they aren’t being updated as frequently, if at all, leaving those third-party applications potentially vulnerable to attack when run on Intel Macs.
There is a little life left in these old computers. Since Apple will provide security updates for another two years, you’ll still be able to shift them on second-user markets for a little longer. But if you or your company are looking to upgrade some of the computers you picked up during the onset of the Covid epidemic in 2020, the end of Windows 10 support and the cessation of Intel Mac support mean you have some buying decisions to make.
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