No more Java refills for Intel Macs after JDK 27, says Oracle

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. The Node.js team downgraded macOS x64 to Tier 2 in May, and from early 2028, the Intel Mac platform will be designated as experimental, according to the current documentation on building Node. A note explains that from that time, "the project will no longer be able to test changes on any Intel-based macOS version... the project intends to continue creating universal binaries for versions of Node.js which are still in support which will be compatible with both Apple Silicon-based and Intel-based macOS versions but they will be untested." "Don't kill my Java, Oracle!" said a dev who had initially been wary of Arm Macs and bought one of the last Intel Macs, but it is not as bad as it sounds. One possibility is to run Linux on an Intel Mac, either directly or, more practically, in a virtual machine, and use the latest JDK on Linux. Further, updates to older JDK releases, such as the long-term support JDK 25, are expected to remain available for Intel Macs. (R)