For many recording studio owners, the Hackintosh has proved to be a way to get what they call ‘the best of both worlds’. The argument being that you get to build a computer to your own requirements that offers all the tweakablity and upgrade options of a Windows PC, but that runs the Apple Mac operating system.
Building a Hackintosh is not for the faint-hearted, it requires a certain amount of getting under the hood and fiddling to make it work. However, not wanting to pay for a real Apple Mac, or be restricted by Apple’s options, many have taken this route.
They claim it offers them a powerful Apple Mac at a fraction of the cost.
Apple doesn’t licence their OS to anyone else, so to run a Hackintosh requires hacking the software to fool the OS into thinking it is sitting on Apple hardware… hence the name.
It can also prove to be a game of cat and mouse as Apple make changes to their OS, which then break the hack. However, it’s not long before the hack is fixed and Hackintosh owners can move onto a newer Mac OS.
This all works for one simple reason, Apple Macs have been running with Intel chips since 2006. As long as the computer you want to run your hack on has a suitable Intel processor and motherboard then you’re good to go.
Then Apple announced their move to Apple Silicon, their own native chip.
In a nutshell, this means that Hackintosh is dead. No Intel, no Hackintosh.
Does this mean that those running a Hackintosh are left dead in the water overnight? No.
For a number of reasons. First, Apple says their transition from Intel to Apple Silicon will run until the end of 2022. That buys those wanting to use a Hackintosh a bit of time.
Writing for Medium, Anupam Chugh said;
Basically, as soon as Apple drops their macOS support for Intel-based architecture (it could be by 2025 at the earliest), Hackintosh would be rendered useless.
Though one may argue that Apple Silicon is simply an ARM-based architecture. Hence it should be possible to install macOS on a supported ARM-based Windows system. Right? Wrong.
Knowing Apple and the fact that they’ve never used the term “ARM” in their entire Keynote event, it’s pretty certain that the tech giant would customize the chip thereby making it incompatible with other ARM processors. Also one wouldn’t be surprised if Apple sets a signed bootloader and security checks on Mac apps to ensure they don’t run on non-Apple hardware.
Even in a best-case scenario where the user keeps using the current Hackintosh Intel-based setup for years, it’s likely that most apps would either stop receiving updates or get significantly slower considering Apple has already released a toolkit for developers to recompile apps “Optimized for M1”.
As we’ve seen in the past, there are plenty of studios running older Mac Pro ‘cheese-grater’, HD rigs and older versions of Pro Tools. Hardware doesn’t stop working once a brand decides to stop making it, it can go on for years. We feel sure that there will be Hackintosh owners who will continue to try and keep their beloved monsters going, if in some cases for sheer bloody-minded reasons.
This way, you could effectively keep running a Hackintosh for many years, taking care not to install any software that won’t run on older versions of macOS. So we’re not talking days or weeks, but years.
A poll (albeit small) on TonyMacX86, of what seems to be Hackintosh owners, when asked “M1 Macs, is this the real end of Hackintosh? … around 70% thought it was the end of the Hackintosh.
However, is it wise to invest in a technology that’s effectively been given an end of life plan?
What do you think? Are you one of the loyal Hackintosh tribe? If so, what is your next step?