JEP 541: Deprecate the macOS/x64 Port for Removal

I'm curious if there are any decently representative use share stats out there for Mac Intel vs ARM. I tried finding some a while ago and found nothing really conclusive (mostly for niches like developer tools or games - what's the long tail look like?).

This keeps getting posted and is not true. Rosetta is still present and working. It throws a deprecation warning notice but otherwise runs fine.

It's macOS 28 that will no longer run x86_64 apps, although games are exempt. Rosetta is basically going game only at that point. They haven't announced how long it will keep working in this capacity.

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"Does the hardware physically work" isn't ever really the question under consideration, though, for better or worse. For Macs specifically, it is going to get increasingly difficult to even test things in the coming years. Mac x86 builds are by far the flakiest on GitHub in my experience, there's no expanding capacity, only refurbished machines 6 years out, and the number of users is dwindling, not to mention the enormous performance gap. So what do you do? When we last asked about it in a project I work on a few users expressed interest, so we kept it, but that isn't forever. The JDK as a project probably has a different risk profile than most other projects too so the cost of keeping around that code can be relatively high.

Not saying it is always good, in fact I would say there is rarely a "good" happy outcome in these cases, just trying to give the alternative perspective when you have to make these calls.

The writing has been on the wall for the last 7 years and the LTS of JDK 25 goes until 2030, 11 years from the point Apple announced their intentions. Java for Mac apps or native Java backend development has always been niche as well. For Java development for Linux hosting, you still have a path forwards beyond 2030 with virtualization. How's your SPARC dev machine holding up?

That's just how things go. But, existing Oracle JDK versions will continue to work, and openjdk might continue to support osx/amd64 as a target.. so I wouldn't worry too much about this.

> the hardware works with no problem

In the same way that PowerPC and m68k hardware still works, sure. Apple silicon is so performant that (much like those previous two hardware jumps) it's not worth maintaining support for the old arch at this point.

> I don't like I'm pushed to migrate only because the software wants that, otherwise the hardware works with no problem.

This is one of the problems with the switch from shrink-wrap software to always-upgrading software. Customers feel like they bought a thing so it should work forever but what they are really asking is that new software be continually written for the hardware they bought years ago.

If you want to run your old hardware with your old software forever, you can. But of course in a connected world where a million malicious parties are trying to take over your system, this is probably a bad decision, and that’s where the tension arises.

Java 25 is an LTS, I guess you can use that for a couple of years still. But at some point of time, macOS will be too old and all kinds of software will no longer install.

Can you run Linux?

My mid 2012 air had trouble with os x about 10 years ago. I moved to nixos and haven't had any issues since.

I second that. I wouldn’t buy an Intel Mac specifically to run Linux, but my T2 Mac Minis work well for me on Linux. I did have to copy some Broadcom firmware from macOS, and I keep a small macOS installation in order to access recovery mode settings.

At this point it would be better to migrate to a new MacBook. There has been a lot performance and efficiency improvements with M1+.

You did well to skip the 2015-2020 era (butterfly keyboards, touchbar).

With that said anything M1 or newer is going to be a delightful upgrade for you. An enormous jump in performance, battery life, and thermal performance.

LLM code isn't allowed in OpenJdk.

Ten minutes later, I'm still trying to figure out the role of "thus" in this headline.

Apple no longer supports this platform. There is no reason to target it for new releases. Java is not abandoning MacOS.

It's only Java on macOS for x64 that gets dropped. Java on Apple's M-type CPUs will still be alive and kicking.

It is open source, anyone is free to send patches, given that OpenJDK is like Linux distros.

Write once, run everywhere refers to the target bytecode running on a compliant JVM. Since apple itself has mentioned to officially drop intel support, OpenJDK maintainers have no reason to continue support on a deprecated hardware. That said, if there is any enterprise/ community that requires a port for intel macs then, they can maintain it. link to become a maintainer: https://openjdk.org/projects/

"a Win10 machine for testing on my left hand side here..."

Well, the Latin word for "left" is "sinister", so that tracks.

You may have misread: Java will keep supporting ARM macOS, they're just deprecating Intel macOS. Also this is a decision taken by the JVM team, not Apple; the latter simply deprecated their Intel platform first.