Most studios have at least one. The iMac in the corner that still does the job. The old Mac Pro under a desk that handles renders overnight. The Intel MacBook Pro a freelancer keeps turning up with. They run the design suite, they open the files, nobody complains, so they stay. Replacing them has never quite reached the top of the list.
Those machines are now on a clock. Later this year Apple ships the next version of macOS, and for the first time it will not run on any Intel Mac at all. If your studio still has Intel machines in service, this is the moment to plan what happens next, while you have time to do it calmly rather than in a panic.
What's actually happening
Apple finished moving the Mac to its own chips a while ago. The last few Intel models were sold off years back, and every Mac on sale today runs Apple Silicon.
The software has now caught up with the hardware. macOS Tahoe, released in September 2025, is the final version of macOS that supports Intel Macs. The next release, macOS 27, is expected at Apple's developer conference in June and will ship to everyone later in the year. It requires Apple Silicon. No Intel Mac will be able to install it.
It's worth being precise about how far along this already is, because the picture is further on than most people assume. Only four Intel models can even run the current macOS: the 2019 Mac Pro, the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro, the 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro and the 2020 27-inch iMac. Every Intel Mac older than that already fell off the support list when Tahoe arrived. So for a lot of studios the question isn't "when will my Mac stop getting updates", it's "my Mac stopped getting major updates months ago and I hadn't noticed".
Your Macs won't stop working. Here's the part that matters
Nothing breaks on launch day. An Intel Mac running Tahoe will keep switching on, keep opening files and keep doing what it does today. Apple has said it will provide security updates for supported Intel Macs for around three years, so roughly into 2028.
The risk for a creative business isn't the operating system itself. It's everything that sits on top of it.
The first pressure is your own software. Adobe, your render tools, your asset managers and your plugins all follow Apple's lead. As vendors build for Apple Silicon as the baseline, Intel versions get less attention, then stop getting new features, then stop getting updated at all. Apple is also retiring Rosetta 2, the behind-the-scenes translator that lets older Intel apps run, after macOS 27. The day a routine app update quietly drops Intel support is the day an Intel machine becomes a problem, and that day arrives on the vendor's schedule, not yours.
The second pressure is security. A machine stuck on an old macOS that no longer receives patches is a soft spot in your network. For studios chasing Cyber Essentials or answering client security questionnaires, unsupported devices are exactly the kind of thing that fails an assessment.
The dates that matter. macOS Tahoe (2025) is the last macOS to support Intel. macOS 27 (late 2026) is Apple Silicon only. Security updates for Intel Macs continue to roughly 2028. After that, an Intel Mac is running software nobody is fixing any more.
Why Apple Silicon is worth the move on its own
Set the deadline aside for a moment. The honest case for moving isn't fear of an end date, it's that the newer machines are genuinely better in ways your team will feel every day.
An Apple Silicon Mac chews through the work an Intel machine labours over. Exports finish faster, timelines scrub without stutter and the machine stays quiet and cool while doing it. The laptops hold a real working day on battery, which matters for anyone editing on location or working between sites. For a studio that bills by the hour, time spent watching a progress bar is time you can't invoice, and the performance gap between a 2019 or 2020 Intel Mac and a current M-series machine is large enough to pay back a chunk of the upgrade in recovered hours.
There's also the matter of where Apple is putting its effort. Apple Intelligence, the on-device AI features, and most of the meaningful new capabilities in recent macOS releases only run on Apple Silicon. Intel Macs were left out of all of it. Staying on Intel doesn't just freeze you where you are, it means watching the platform move on without you.
What to do about it
The mistake we see most often is leaving it until a machine actually fails or an app update breaks a workflow mid-deadline. Replacing one Mac in a hurry is annoying. Replacing several across a studio in a hurry, while a project is live, is expensive and stressful.
The better approach is to treat this as a planned refresh rather than an emergency. That usually means three things: take stock of exactly which Intel machines you still have and who uses them, spread the replacements across this financial year and next so the cost doesn't land in one lump, and handle the data and app migration properly so nobody loses a morning hunting for files or re-licensing software.
Older Intel Macs
Anything before the 2019 to 2020 models is already off major macOS updates and the security clock is well into its final stretch. This is the group to move first.
The last four Intel models
The 2019 Mac Pro, 2019 and 2020 MacBook Pros and 2020 iMac have a little more runway, but macOS 27 still leaves them behind later this year. Plan the replacement on your own timeline.
A mixed studio estate
A few Intel machines among newer ones is the most common case. Map which is which, then stagger the swaps so the work and the spend stay manageable.
For most creative studios the right answer is a phased plan over the next twelve to eighteen months, not a single big-bang replacement and not waiting until something breaks. We can help you work out which machines to prioritise, what the right Apple Silicon model is for each role, and how to move people across without disrupting live work.
Not sure which of your Macs are on the way out? We can audit your studio's machines, flag the Intel ones and put together a refresh plan that fits your budget and your project calendar.