Apple is already putting an end to 32-bit apps on iOS devices with iOS 11, and soon the company will make the same changes on its macOS operating system.
During its Platform State of the Union keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple told developers that macOS High Sierra will be the "last macOS release to support 32-bit apps without compromises."
Starting in January of 2018, all new apps submitted to the Mac App Store must be 64-bit, and all apps and app updates submitted must be 64-bit by June 2018. With the next version of macOS after High Sierra, Apple will begin "aggressively" warning users about 32-bit apps before eventually phasing them out all together.
In iOS 11, 32-bit apps cannot be installed or launched. Attempting to open a non-supported 32-bit app gives a message notifying users that the app needs to be updated before it can run on iOS 11.
Prior to phasing out 32-bit apps on iOS 11, Apple gave both end users and developers several warnings, and the company says it will follow the same path for the macOS operating system.
Sunday October 12, 2025 7:05 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple plans to announce new products "this week," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Apple's "Mac Your Calendars" teaser last October
In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the products set to be updated this week include the iPad Pro, Vision Pro, and "likely" the base 14-inch MacBook Pro, with all three likely to receive a spec bump with Apple's next-generation M5 chip.
Gurman...
Monday October 13, 2025 8:25 am PDT by Eric Slivka
Buried in its announcement about "F1: The Movie" making its streaming debut on December 12, Apple has also announced that Apple TV+ is being rebranded as simply Apple TV.
A single line near the end of the press release states "Apple TV+ is now simply Apple TV, with a vibrant new identity," though Apple's website has yet to be updated with any changes, so we're unsure on the details of the...
Saturday October 11, 2025 6:59 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple's software engineers are internally testing iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions.
iOS 26.0.2 will likely be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet.
The update will likely be released within the next few weeks.
Last month, Apple released iOS...
Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models.
In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB.
Like...
Tuesday October 14, 2025 11:59 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple marketing chief Greg Joswiak today teased the launch of an upcoming product, saying "something powerful is coming" on social media.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
A short animation accompanying Joswiak's teaser reveals a brief glimpse of a MacBook Pro along with the words "coming soon." The shape of the MacBook Pro is a V, which is the Roman numeral...
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips.
The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
Saturday October 11, 2025 10:10 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are still nearly a year away, a handful of new features and changes have already been rumored for the devices.
Below, we have recapped some of the early iPhone 18 Pro rumors so far.
Smaller Dynamic Island
The standard iPhone 18, iPhone 18 Pro, and iPhone 18 Pro Max will be equipped with a slightly smaller Dynamic Island, but the devices will...
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version?
According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...
Sunday October 12, 2025 9:24 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
After releasing AirPods Pro 3 last month, Apple is already working on the next AirPods Pro, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
It is unclear if the new AirPods Pro would be branded as AirPods Pro 4, or if they would be considered an updated version of AirPods Pro 3. Gurman did not take a position, opting to describe them as a "new version" of the "high-end in-ear buds."
AirPods Pro 2...
Tuesday October 14, 2025 4:35 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is going to launch a new version of the MacBook Pro as soon as tomorrow, so we thought we'd go over what to expect from Apple's upcoming Mac.
M5 Chip
The MacBook Pro will be one of the first new devices to use the next-generation M5 chip, which will replace the M4 chip.
The M5 is built on TSMC's more advanced 3-nanometer process, and it will bring speed and efficiency improvements. ...
Anyone else find it annoying how quickly Apple obsoletes older software on their platforms?
Even annoying-as-hell Windows can often run 20 year old binaries. TWO DECADES ago.
Right now the oldest binaries MacOS can run are from the PowerPC -> Intel switch era, circa 2006. Whatever macOS comes after High Sierra will probably obsolete 32 bit x86 binaries, which will pull the date even more forward.
They don't seem to care about preserving the functionality of legacy software. Some apps will never be updated because the developers no longer care about it, went out of business, etc... This software is lost to time. This is even MORE the case on iOS where you can't even GET the software anymore. At least on macOS you can keep archives of old apps around.
I'm digging the 64-bit only transition, I don't understand all the hate. If you don't like it, you're perfectly welcome to stay on the older OS, many of my production macs are one to two OS's behind because updates often break compatibility and it takes time for software to catch up.
I know guys who are still rocking Snow Leopard in recording studio's because they have hardware interfaces that aren't supported by the devs anymore. So what? Buy new hardware or don't update the OS.
I am curious, like what? [doublepost=1496796453][/doublepost] You must be new here? Apple has done this for decades. Part of reason Windows has had so much trouble is the complexity of decades of compatibility...
No. Apple has NOT done this for decades.
Do you have any idea how much work Apple put into making 68x00 binaries just work on PowerPC? And do you remember how incredibly seamless that transition was? Stuff JUST WORKED. You didn't even know it was a 68k binary running on your Mac in 1998.
The Mac OS 9 to 10 transition was a pain, but Classic worked beautifully until Apple killed it in 2007. That's right, over 20 years of backwards compatibility for some apps, all the way up until 10 years ago with 10.5.
So yeah, a decade of this is what we've had to endure.
Windows has so much trouble because they use a monolithic database known as the Registry to store a LOT of things that shouldn't be stored in the same database. It was a horrible mistake, a workaround for limitations of their previous versions, and they never saw fit to stop using it for new things. If M$ had decided to contain that mess before XP, they'd have solved a lot of problems, if they'd decided to contain it before 7, they'd still be better off. But no, it's still used in 10.
