The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2026 revealed some very exciting news for Apple enthusiasts. The highlight was undoubtedly Apple Intelligence and Siri AI. Another big reveal was macOS 27 Golden Gate, which comes with a variety of new features and improvements over previous updates. However, only certain devices benefit from this new operating system update, and it is important that you know if your Apple computer is one of them.
Apple has already discontinued support for most Intel Macs with macOS 26 Tahoe in 2025. The only Apple computers using Intel processors that got this update were the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, the 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro, the 2019 Mac Pro, and the 2020 27-inch iMac. None of them get the macOS update 27 Golden Gate, which means only Mac users powered by Apple silicon are supported.
This means that all Macs released since 2020 and equipped with M-series chips will receive macOS 27, including various models of MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio and Mac Pro, as well as the latest MacBook Neo with the A18 Pro chip inside.
What’s happening to Intel Macs?
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Even though Apple has dropped major operating system support for its Intel-based products, that doesn’t mean your Intel-based MacBook or MacBook Air is completely obsolete. Apple follows a model where each operating system receives security updates for three years after its initial release. Following the same pattern, you can expect your Intel-based iMac or MacBook to receive updates until 2029.
Another area of concern is apps built natively for the x86 architecture, as the company says Golden Gate will be the last version of macOS to feature Rosetta 2, Apple’s Intel-to-Apple translation layer. This means that you can run Intel apps just fine on macOS 27, but you won’t be able to do that once macOS 28 arrives.
This incentivizes developers to produce versions of their applications specifically for Apple silicon, which should make them much more efficient. However, this poses a problem for older apps and games that are no longer in active development, as they cannot be optimized for Apple silicon. The company offers a saving grace here, saying it will retain some Rosetta features in future updates for running older games, but this feature won’t work with most Intel apps that are still receiving updates.
