Apple's final break with Chipzilla leaves another platform preparing to wind down support
Oracle is moving to stop maintaining the macOS/x64 port of the Java Development Kit (JDK) from version 27, which is expected in September.JEP (JDK Enhancement Proposal) 8386091 states that "Oracle engineers will stop maintaining the macOS/x64 port as of JDK 27." A few days ago, while noting that the JEP was still in a draft state, a pull request to implement the deprecation was submitted by Mikael Vidstedt, senior director Java Virtual Machine at Oracle. Building the JDK for macOS/x64 would require setting a flag, and "there will be no guarantee that the port will build, much less function." Customers could buy an Intel Mac from Apple as recently as June 2023, when the last Intel-based Mac, the 2019 Mac Pro, was discontinued. That said, Apple is now hastening the end of support for Intel Macs, and, at the recent Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the company confirmed that macOS 27 "Golden Gate" will not support Intel Macs, and that it will be the last version to include the Rosetta 2 compatibility layer for apps compiled for Intel.
Java is one of many platforms removing or reducing support for Intel Macs. The Rust project demoted support to Tier 2 from Rust 1.90, released last September, which means that the compiler and standard library will still be distributed for the platform, but automated tests are no longer guaranteed to run, increasing the risk of platform-specific bugs. Python has listed x86_64-apple-darwin as a Tier 2 platform since November 2025, although Python's Tier 2 support is still relatively strong, with failures blocking a release and fixes required within 24 hours.
