Are tech-triggered flashbacks a thing? They are for me. I’ll be doing something suitably geeky when chills run down my spine. Maybe an emulator will evoke the trauma of 8-bit games crashing milliseconds before the final screen. Or a video filter app will spark memories of VHS tapes being devoured without warning. The latest flashback comes courtesy of Apple, now reminding us Intel-based Mac apps will soon be sent to live on a farm. Which makes a highlight reel of previous appageddons play on a loop in my head.
Admittedly, a new appocalypse isn’t breaking news. Apple, ever eager to torch its own past, announced at WWDC 2025 that it would sever its last ties with the Intel era. So macOS 26 (Tahoe) will be the final version to support Intel Macs. Its successor, out later this year, will be the last to carry the full Rosetta translation layer. (Apple says it will continue to support some older, unmaintained Intel-based Mac gaming titles.) Then 2027 will usher in macOS 28 – aka macOS Death Valley, presumably – littered with the corpses of countless Intel Mac apps.
This week, the first warnings reached the public. Launch an Intel Mac app in the macOS 26.4 public beta and you’ll be notified it won’t survive the looming appocalypse. I got one when firing up OpenEmu, a slick retro emulator that I love because it just works. Although, quite soon, it apparently won’t.
This compelled me to root around the System Information app in /Applications/Utilities to find more apps on borrowed time. Want to do the same? Under Software, select Applications, sort the list by kind, look for Intel, and then stare in horror at what’s on the chopping block.
Game over
For me, that’s mostly games, audio plugins and a rarely used but excellent web design app. From obscure and weird corners of the software world, then, but those are often the greats. And those least likely to be updated – because they’re hardly money-spinners – no matter how many alerts Apple flings everyone’s way.
But, as noted earlier, we’ve been here before. Apple nuked 32-bit iPhone apps in 2017. I still have an iPhone ‘folder of sadness’, full of apps and games that will never see an update. To date, only Coolson’s Pocket Pack has escaped. Missing old favourites even drove me to wrestle with an old iPad Air, downgrading it to the last version of iOS that supported 32-bit apps. The result: a kind of interactive shrine to classic lost iOS games.
On Mac, 32-bit apps got a longer stay of execution, bowing out with macOS 10.15 Catalina in 2019. Now it’s the turn of Intel Mac apps. I’ve no space to keep an old Mac around, though. So Virtual Machines under UTM will have to suffice for wistful trots down memory lane. But even that’s a faff. It’s likely, then, that Intel favourites will survive only in my memory, alongside my unending disdain for Apple repeating this cycle.
Which begs the question: why? Sure, Apple Silicon debuted in 2020, but Intel Macs were sold until 2023. Presumably, Apple thinks four years is enough transition time for everyone. But I can’t help wishing for some Windows-style tolerance for the past – Macs that are just a bit more PC, letting us revisit old favourites with ease. After all, it’s not like Apple is short of a few bucks to keep the old magic alive.
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