Hackintosh is almost dead. Apple added it to macOS Sonoma, and it’s only going to get worse

Apple has removed Sonoma drivers from macOS for older Broadcom WiFi and Bluetooth cards that were last used in the 2012-2013 iMac and MacBook, iOS developer Aleksandar Vucic said.

This doesn’t mean anything to Mac owners, but it has become a big problem for installing hacks. Many Hackintosh PC builds used these cards because they worked with all Apple services: iMessage, FaceTime, AirDrop, Continuity and Handoff (Apple services have always depended on certain Wi-Fi chips). Now these cards can only work in macOS Sonoma if the OS security level is seriously reduced.

Similar drivers for Ethernet have been removed in macOS Ventura.

Also in macOS Sonoma 14.4, Apple made changes to the way USB works, which led to some users experiencing periodic accessory disconnections.

As a result of these changes, using Hackintosh with modern macOS has become almost impossible due to constant and sudden crashes. Vučić gave several examples that he encountered personally:

▪️ One day the Ethernet controller (Intel I225-V) worked perfectly, and the next day it simply crashed the entire assembly.

▪️WiFi works great, iCloud works, but iMessage and FaceTime are not affected in macOS Monterey, Ventura and Sonoma. The same network card worked fine on a different card, and FaceTime with iMessage worked in macOS Monterey and Ventura.

▪️ The Intel AX200 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth adapter may work fine, but if you turn off Bluetooth and restart your computer, macOS will begin to recognize it as a BCM_4350C2 chip. Only a reboot on Windows 11 can revive the adapter

▪️ macOS Sonoma 14.3.1 worked perfectly on Vucic’s build. But version 14.4 cannot be installed. When you run the installer, the computer reboots almost immediately

Vučić believes that Hackintosh will work for perhaps several years, but the number of available functions will gradually decrease, both old and new.

Vucic has no complaints about Apple. Apple never cared about hackintosh. Removing old and unused code is a normal and healthy practice for all developers, so Apple made the right decision for its operating systems. [Aplus]