Apple's announcement that macOS Tahoe will be the last version supporting Intel Macs marks the end of support for older hardware, impacting OpenCore and Hackintosh communities. While OpenCore Legacy Patcher can still extend the life of older Macs temporarily, future macOS updates will only support Apple Silicon, leading to the decline of Hackintosh and OpenCore projects. The communities are somewhat resigned but nostalgic, recognizing this as the end of an era for running newer macOS versions on unsupported hardware.
Hackintosh enthusiasts are concerned about the future of their DIY Mac builds as macOS Sonoma removes support for drivers crucial to their projects. While it's still possible to create a Hackintosh with workarounds, the process is becoming more complex and may compromise security. The rise of powerful and well-designed official Mac products from Apple has also lessened the appeal of Hackintosh machines. As a result, the future of Hackintosh builds appears uncertain.
The Hackintosh community is facing a significant setback as Apple has removed driver support for older Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cards crucial to Hackintosh builds, signaling the potential end of the Hackintosh era. This move is attributed to Apple's transition from .kext to .dext drivers and the cleaning up of obsolete code in macOS. While this marks the end of an era, the bright side is the robust and versatile Mac lineup, including the affordable Apple Silicon-powered Mac mini and M1 MacBook Air.
Apple's macOS 14 Sonoma update is causing the demise of the Hackintosh community by removing support for older Wi-Fi drivers, making it difficult to run macOS on non-Apple hardware. This move has disappointed fans who enjoyed building custom macOS rigs, and some are lamenting the loss of their favorite homebrew hardware. With the shift from Intel to ARM-based chips and the removal of Wi-Fi driver support, the future of Hackintosh seems bleak, leading to a decline in the once-thriving online community.
Apple removes support for older Mac hardware in new macOS releases, but the Hackintosh community has found a way to run modern versions of macOS on older Macs using OpenCore. OpenCore is a boot loader that modifies the boot blocks on a PC's storage device to allow the startup of multiple operating systems. The OpenCore Legacy Patcher (OLP) from dortania is a recommended tool for installing and running macOS versions back to Big Sur on Intel-based Macs as old as 2008 and later. However, using OpenCore and modified versions of the macOS installer may violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and can be unstable, so caution is advised.
