Originally Posted By: mrgeeze
The expectation that OS updates may cease in 12months+-.
How much after that before support for Rosetta ?
Nobody knows.


Everyone who pays attention knows.

Apple is required by California law and EU treaties to support operating systems for 3 years after first release. Sometime in late October, they will announce the official EOL date for the 3 year old MacOS — this year, it will be Big Sur. All large corporate clients and government agencies will be emailed when this occurs.

Although not required, they do release critical security updates for 5 years (and sometimes longer if a nasty security flaw is revealed).

Any Mac that shipped with OS 10.7 (2012) can use Internet Recovery to reinstall the original MacOS that came with the machine—there's a support bulletin, of course. Apple no longer provides restoration DVDs for 2011 and earlier Macs but there's a whole slew of users who keep these disk images archived.

Apple will give plenty of warning when Rosetta 2 goes away—just as they did a few years before 32bit support and Rosetta were dropped.

Then there is the Vintage and Obsolete Hardware list that's updated twice a year. You can read the details here.

Obtaining service for your Apple product after an expired warranty

BIAB 2024 Audiophile, 24Core/60CoreGPU Core M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP/color]
[color=#FF0040]Digital Performer11, LogicPro
Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro64/Notion6 /Overture5