The creators of the open source project OpenCore Legacy Patcher have taken an important development step: In the future, the tool, which gives Macs no longer supported by Apple access to the latest operating system, will also work with macOS 14 aka Sonoma. The new version OpenCore Legacy Patcher 1.0.0 now supports 2008 to 2019 MacBooks, 2009 to 2017 MacBook Air models, 2009 to 2017 MacBook Pro machines, 2007 to 2018 iMacs, 2008 Mac Pro workstations until 2018 and even Xserves from 2008 to 2010.
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As usual: exercise some caution
On Apple’s side, Sonoma only runs with Macs from 2018 onwards. With OCLP, over 80 unsupported machines are now added. In practice, however, this only means that macOS 14 can generally be installed. Individual parts of the hardware can fail even after setup because they still require special patches. This includes in particular the T1 security chip in 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro models. This means that ApplePay, Touch ID and the use of the integrated password manager in Safari and the system settings are no longer necessary.
Other issues concern Metal graphics support and various smaller areas. OCLP is still “in the middle of active development” for Sonoma, emphasize the creators. It is a completely community-supported project – anyone who wants to take part is welcome, as are the creators very happy to donate at.
Apple’s security measures
It’s nice that the OCLP makers always react quickly to new operating systems. Support has been in the works since the first beta – the project was also soon launched with macOS 13 aka Ventura. The problem is that Apple tends to gradually nail down its systems more and more. In the past there have been problems due to new security measures. Sometimes the system even fails to start. Therefore, a Mac revived in this way cannot always be considered reliable. A possible alternative for (even) older machines is installing ChromeOS.
As soon as Apple no longer supports a Mac with its latest operating system, it loses access to important updates. As the company has already admitted, not all security patches are offered for older systems. This means that you may still have security problems. Apple has actually supported Macs for a comparatively long time. Nevertheless, there are always conflicts about machines that have fallen out of support. The company is currently slowly burying its Intel support. In the end, the machines were cut off from the development for the Vision Pro in a rather pointless way.
(bsc)