JEP 541: Deprecate the macOS/x64 Port for Removal
openjdk.org90 points by pmg1991 3 hours ago
90 points by pmg1991 3 hours ago
If this is as stated, then Oracle will still offer macOS/x64 ports of Java 11 LTS, Java 17 LTS, Java 21 LTS and Java 25 LTS.
Java 25 LTS was released last year. All these LTS versions are still receiving updates. You'll only be in trouble if you need some new feature of Java that will only begin to exist in JDK 27 or later, but want to run on macOS/x64.
That sounds reasonable, Intel Macs aren't much used anymore.
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?).
June 2026 Steam Survey says 23% Intel
Homebrew 30d says 27% Intel
My gut says 20-25% is a reasonable ballpark.
Apple generally provides 6-8 years of OS support for hardware. My 6.5 year old 2019 Macbook Pro works fine with macOS 26; macOS 27 will drop support in September 2026; macOS 28 will drop Rosetta Intel support. macOS 26 get updates thru September 2028 at which point all Intel mac hardware will be >8 years old.
[1]: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/processormfg/
[2]: https://formulae.brew.sh/analytics/homebrew-os-arch-ci/30d/
I would argue that Steam and Homebrew users are relatively niche portions of the userbase, and that they would be more likely to own newer systems.
Neither statistic comes from a sample group that's more representative of the average user, who is mostly browsing the web and using a handful of undemanding applications, and is therefore less motivated to upgrade for performance reasons.
I'm not convinced either of those are substantially more niche than people who need to install the JDK
Maybe for Steam, but my gut instinct is that Homebrew would be the opposite: it would be disproportionately popular among devs who pride themselves on keeping hardware for many years longer than most people. "Yeah, this 2015 MBP isn't great for gaming anymore, but it's fine for running vim!" is absolutely the kind of thing I hear frequently.
We haven't given out an Intel Mac at work (enterprise with 50k users, maybe 1/5th use Macs) in years....I think we might have a handful of people still using one, but it's gotta be 500:1
Browser communites would have this, no?
Browsers stopped reporting "real" user agents a long time ago as fingerprinting protection.
Firefox reports correctly.
Not on macOS at least, the Firefox user agent on my uptodate M1 MBP says that I'm on "Intel Mac OS X 10.15".
PS: and on my Win11 machine Firefox says that I'm on 'Windows NT 10.0', which AFAIK is the same NT version that was also reported on Win10.
And on Linux it says you're on "X11" even if you're a proud Wayland session user!
All the Mac browsers report as Intel even on Apple Silicon to reduce fingerprinting/avoid being detected as PowerPC
Totally makes sense, macOS Golden Gate will no longer run x64 apps.
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.
Have they announced how they’re going to make it game only? A whitelist based on a hash of the executable? That seems cumbersome.
The macOS 27 release notes explain how to activate this mode. `game-test-tool`
The basic answer is ability to run x86_64 will still be there, but the system frameworks (apart from like OpenGL shims etc.) will no longer be shipped with x86_64 slices.
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FWIW old Macs (I have a 2014 MBP still lying around) still boot up and work, they just don't get the latest OS updates anymore.
What e-waste would you be referring to?
I've got a notification stating that in the next update the device (a working scanner) will stop being supported, probably because of the lack of ARM driver.
Probably due to the fact that older machines won't get updates
It's still functional and will get security updates, no? No reason to throw it away?
I guess I'm the only one who is still on x64. I don't like I'm pushed to migrate only because the software wants that, otherwise the hardware works with no problem.
"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.
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?
Why? I can upgrade, that's not a problem. I'm just saying macOS works fine so far, almost all of the software works too. But I see increasing amount of announcements like this one suggesting that I'll have to replace hardware to get the latest versions. So I guess I will do that only to be able to use that software, not to get better performance.
Well Apple isn't making amd64 systems anymore, so software support will naturally start to waver.
What I wanted to say that I don't like exactly that. The hardware is fine, but software is not.
I feel like Apple got a lot of devs who would otherwise be Linux users on board circa 2005 due to solid-feeling laptop hardware with drivers and power management that just worked. That pattern became self-propagating as startups scaled up, bought a lot of Macs and hired Mac IT people.
But Linux has gotten better in that time period, too. I wouldn’t say it’s quite as refined out of the box. But Linux is ahead in the ability to do whatever you want and keep using your old hardware.
For people who care about how computers work, I think Linux is a more stimulating environment than macOS to work in. Even though—or partly because—you may have to dig in a little deeper to get things working the ways you want.
LLMs have completely changed how I run Linux. I just got a brand new Lenovo and getting the fingerprint sensor PAM configuration going for sudo was a breeze. I was having issues with my wifi not switching APs properly on my mesh and debugging and implementing a stable permanent fix took the same amount of time as what would previously have been just the start of me googling to the problem. And now that it's done the experience is really nice. An absolute dream even.
100%, a lot of those kinds of bad linux user experience things are becoming trivial with the help of a bot.
But also the unified memory on macs is compelling for somewhat related reasons.
If it weren’t for the supply chain nightmares on top of nightmares, we’d be experiencing a nice little moment.
You can install Linux on the hardware and get full x86_64 support again.
Have just read above that it's possible. It's interesting actually. So I guess I'll do that once I buy a new mac. I have a maxed out pro, with i9 and so on, so throwing it await would be a shame
> I'll have to replace hardware to get the latest versions
Or switch software. Windows will run via Boot Camp and depending on your hardware Linux might work too.
Including Windows 11 on T2 Macs, even though there are places online that claim it doesn’t work. It’s much easier to set up Linux, though.
Intel Macs can run practically anything. Mine had a triple-boot between macOS, Windows and Arch Linux, back when that kind of thing was possible.
Apple's really cut off gaming for good. My only hope is that someone ports FEX/Proton to macOS, or finds a way to get it running with proper hardware acceleration.
My mid 2012 air had trouble with os x about 10 years ago. I moved to nixos and haven't had any issues since.
If you have Apple Intel hardware, I strongly strongly strongly recommend you migrate to Linux. It works amazingly on MacOS, except I guess the sound drivers aren't perfect. Too many security holes in old, unpatched software.
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+.
Not if the hardware still works and still does the job.
My Macbook Air 2021 M1 flies circles around my 2014 MBP. I got a new battery for the 2014 but the rubber bezel is disintegrating. I'm thinking of turning the 2014 into a TV driver but that's about it.
Seems to be the idea to me: don't use a no longer supported +10yo laptop as a daily driver, but convert it to something useful for free.
Being a laptop, the power draw is almost negligible and it doesn't take much space.
People want computers to take on new jobs and the hardware is a limiting factor on that. And even if it can take on a job, that doesn't mean it does it as well as a newer machine.
Depends. I'm surrounded by people who just need light web browsing and emails. They don't really like computers, they want to use them only when absolutely necessary. A Mac from 2012 with a 256-512 GiB SSD and 8 GiB of RAM is plenty.
Hell, last week I was on holidays without my computer, and I have borrowed such a machine. The battery has been replaced so it still has a long battery time. It was as fast as I could hope (and I'm quite sensitive to this stuff!), the only thing slowing me down was the keyboard layout, the window management of the OS, and the touchpad gestures not responding as well as what I have on Linux (notably swipe for back in Firefox, I was quite surprised).
This thing can't be updated anymore though and even Firefox gave up, so I advised switching to Linux to keep things safe.
Aside from the OS, this thing does 100% the job it needs to do. Recent hardware won't do better because that's not the limiting factor.
Even if money is not an issue, replacing hardware has environmental costs, and that's in this spirit that I answered no, not necessarily better.
People like computers to work fast. They don't like when their computer sounds like a jet engine. Especially among other people whose computers don't do that. People like not having to worry too much charging their computer.
If it already does the job it needs to, does it really need a bleeding edge version of Java?
The environmental cost is less than ordering a pizza. A product that someone uses for years is not going to be an environmental issue.
> People like computers to work fast.
People don't like to wait for their computer. The nuance is quite important.
> They don't like when their computer sounds like a jet engine. Especially among other people whose computers don't do that. People like not having to worry too much charging their computer.
But the 2012 Mac I'm talking about does all that for what it's used for: completely silent (and trust me, I'm quite sensitive to that), lasts on battery long enough, as fast as possible (of course a new machine would be faster, but it would not be meaningful for the use case).
> The environmental cost is less than ordering a pizza. A product that someone uses for years is not going to be an environmental issue.
That's completely wrong.
I'm not sure why you are pushing here.
seems very reasonable to me
Guess it's time to upgrade from my 2014 MBP
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.
I was very confused at first when I read the headline because my brain skipped the x64 and I thought "Wait! No more Java for macOS?".
> WARNING: The macOS/x64 port is deprecated and may be removed in a future release.
OK, seems reasonable. Next sentence:
> There will be no guarantee that the port will build, much less function.
This... Is something quite different? This isn't what I think "deprecation" means. The message should say "no longer maintained" if that's what they mean. And it should include the "not guaranteed to build, much less function" part.
Wasn't Java once a "write once, run everywhere"? Not that this affects me personally (I use Linux primarily; and have a Win10 machine for testing on my left hand side here), but it seems strange that Oracle supports fewer operating systems rather than more. Perhaps Oracle aims for a windows11-only Java version ... where everyone must verify his or her age.
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.
People said AI was going to replace all programmers, yet AI can't even maintain a x64 macOS port of Java.
LLM code isn't allowed in OpenJdk.
Practically that means code that is identifiable as LLM, if the code is indistinguishable it is indistinguishable.
Isn't this the paid version of the JDK?
EDIT: I should actually click the link, not just read the title. Rip.
[stub for offtopicness]
[Submitted title was "As of JDK 27, Oracle engineers will thus stop maintaining the macOS/x64 port", which is a quote from the article, but was a bit confusing in the title]
Ten minutes later, I'm still trying to figure out the role of "thus" in this headline.
I think it’s clear from the “Motivation” section, as it’s actually preceded by another sentence there.
> Apple has transitioned its hardware products to the AArch64 processor architecture and is phasing out support for x64. Oracle engineers will thus stop maintaining the macOS/x64 port as of JDK 27.
I like it. Bring back thus as a normal word. Also thusly.
It’s fine to have it as a normal word, it might even be one! Hehe it is to me at least :)
However, I believe OP is right, it’s un…grammatical? -parasable? in the headline? There’s no…referent?
More plain spoken :) - there’s nothing indicating what lead to the thus. I.e. “it’s raining thus I brought my umbrella”, we’re missing the “It’s raining” part
Oh, how times have changed.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced at May's Worldwide Developer Conference in San Jose, Calif., Mac OS X will come with a full implementation of Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java 2, Standard Edition. It will be the only high-volume OS that does so
Oracle screwed themselves lately, the licensing push basically started IT departments with exterminating Java and anything related to it.
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.
With regards to the last bit, Apple hasn't shipped Java as part of the OS in ages.