macOS 27 Golden Gate Marks the End of Intel Mac Support With New Apple Silicon Optimization and On Device AI Tuning
Apple has revealed the name of the next desktop operating system and it is macOS 27 Golden Gate. Craig Federighi used a comical live action short starring both himself and a bobblehead of himself to reveal the new, landmark operating system, which will make the transition for Mac hardware compatibility permanent.
The big story behind macOS 27 is the complete abandonment of the old architecture. The OS no longer supports any Intel machines. To even run the operating system, you must be using an Apple Silicon M series processor, or the new announced A18 Pro processor families. While devices with Intel chips are out of the running for new features and OS additions, Apple guaranteed that these devices will be supported with security updates on older systems (such as macOS 26) for another 3 years. Also, the Rosetta 2 layer still works with the Intel side on Apple Silicon machines for this final iteration of supported devices, meaning apps will continue to run without updates from developers.
As Apple has shed off the restrictions of its Intel architecture the system itself has gained some improvements. On macOS 27 it takes advantage of a streamlined codebase and optimized systems with Apple Silicon neural engine. With the new updates, Safari can monitor all open browser tabs at once and instantly push a notification if the content of a webpage is changed or has updated. Also, with natively updated productivity apps you gain unified sidebars that stretch the entire length of your current app window for more effective screen real estate.
