MacOS Golden Gate Ends Rosetta 2 Support for Intel Apps

The most interesting angle the source is not leading with: Rosetta 2 is ending, and that deadline is now concrete.

macOS Golden Gate does not just drop Intel Macs from the supported list. It also marks the final release with full Rosetta 2 support, meaning the translation layer that has kept Intel-built apps running on Apple silicon since 2020 disappears entirely after this cycle. For anyone still running software that has never been recompiled for Apple silicon, the clock is now visible on the wall.

Four specific machines running macOS Tahoe miss the cut for Golden Gate: the 16-inch MacBook Pro (2019), the 13-inch MacBook Pro with four Thunderbolt 3 ports (2020), the 2020 iMac, and the 2019 Mac Pro. Apple signaled this transition a year earlier when it named Tahoe the final release for pre-Apple silicon hardware, so the drop itself is not a surprise. The Rosetta 2 sunset, though, is a separate and harder deadline that affects Apple silicon owners, not just those on older machines.

watchOS 27 makes the sharpest cuts of any platform this cycle. Five Apple Watch models lose support in a single wave: the Series 6, Series 7, Series 8, original Ultra, and second-generation SE, effectively erasing three years of hardware at once. Only the Series 9 and newer, plus the SE 3, remain compatible.

Siri AI takes center stage

The centerpiece of iOS 27 is Siri AI, which replaces Spotlight with a “Search or Ask” interface accessed by swiping down from the center of the display. The feature also adapts to a user’s writing style when composing messages, with conversation context shaping how it responds across Mail and Messages. In the European Union, Siri AI launches on macOS and visionOS but not on iPhone or iPad.

iOS 27 also changes how notifications behave physically: they now slide in from the left edge rather than dropping from the top, and Notification Center moves to a swipe from the top-left corner, freeing the center gesture for Siri. The update supports the same devices as iOS 26, including the iPhone 11 and second-generation iPhone SE, making it the widest compatibility range of any iOS release to date.