Why is macOS minimum 11.0? (And beware of Xcode 27!)

[dannytaurus]

In commit 837ae1404 (19th April 2026) the minimum macOS target was changed from 10.9 to 11.0 but I can't seem to find any compelling code reason why.

@Christoph-Hart Was this just a preference? Or was there some code/architecture reason for the change?

The jump from 10.9 to 11.0 is not small. It cuts out quite a few older systems:

┌─────────┬─────────────┬──────────┐
│ 10.9    │ Mavericks   │ 2013     │
├─────────┼─────────────┼──────────┤
│ 10.10   │ Yosemite    │ 2014     │
├─────────┼─────────────┼──────────┤
│ 10.11   │ El Capitan  │ 2015     │
├─────────┼─────────────┼──────────┤
│ 10.12   │ Sierra      │ 2016     │
├─────────┼─────────────┼──────────┤
│ 10.13   │ High Sierra │ 2017     │
├─────────┼─────────────┼──────────┤
│ 10.14   │ Mojave      │ 2018     │
├─────────┼─────────────┼──────────┤
│ 10.15   │ Catalina    │ 2019     │ 👈 32-bit support dropped here
├─────────┼─────────────┼──────────┤
│ 11.0    │ Big Sur     │ 2020     │ 👈 Apple Silicon introduced here
└─────────┴─────────────┴──────────┘

A percentage of my customers are on pre-11.0 systems, and all my existing Maize Sampler-based plugins support back to 10.14, so I'd like to change the 11.0 to something lower in my exports.

Anyone know of any reason why this would cause problems?

Side note: @David-Healey, you mentioned here that you use 'HISE defaults', which are now 11.0, but the Rhapsody website says 10.14+. Just wanted you to know you might need to change your website wording, if you've exported/updated the player since April this year.

[dannytaurus]

@dannytaurus Just looked into Xcode versions and requirements.

My installed Xcode 26.1 will build back to 10.13 but Xcode 27.0 changes everything.

Looks like Xcode 27.0 targets a minimum of macOS 12 - which makes sticking on Xcode 26.1 a necessity for now.

Xcode 26 can build for macOS 10.13 targets, but Xcode 27 moves that way up to macOS 12!

Also means HISE will need to bump up to macOS 12 for compatibility with Xcode 27+, so maybe I just get on the 11+ ride now?

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus said in Why is macOS minimum 11.0? (And beware of Xcode 27!):

Side note: @David-Healey, you mentioned here that you use 'HISE defaults', which are now 11.0, but the Rhapsody website says 10.14+. Just wanted you to know you might need to change your website wording, if you've exported/updated the player since April this year.

I noticed it too and I changed it in my fork a couple of months ago.

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus said in Why is macOS minimum 11.0? (And beware of Xcode 27!):

Looks like Xcode 27.0 targets a minimum of macOS 12

Where do you see this?

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey said in Why is macOS minimum 11.0? (And beware of Xcode 27!):

I noticed it too and I changed it in my fork a couple of months ago.

And no ill effects so far?

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus None, but I'm using Ventura as my build system, and whatever version of xcode it supports.

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey said in Why is macOS minimum 11.0? (And beware of Xcode 27!):

Where do you see this?

Xcode 27 Release Notes https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode-release-notes/xcode-27-release-notes

The relevant line is under the "Intel Deprecation" section (issue ID 162138432):

"Xcode 27 will only install and run on Apple silicon Macs. The macOS 27 SDK supports back deploying Universal (Intel and Apple Silicon) apps to macOS 12 and later. Intel development is still possible with macOS versions that support Rosetta like macOS 27."

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus said in Why is macOS minimum 11.0? (And beware of Xcode 27!):

The relevant line is under the "Intel Deprecation" section (issue ID 162138432):

hmm I found this page which mentions the deployment target for Xcode27 as being macOS 12-27

But it also says macOS 11-26 for Xcode 26, so maybe deployment target doesn't mean what we think it means.

Edit: I just noticed a helpful bit of info at the bottom of the page

Deployment Target: The OS range supported by this version of Xcode for uploading apps to App Store Connect.

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey Hope you're right!

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey Claude says:

the libc++ minimum deployment target was raised to 11.0, which is a hard toolchain fact — a C++ codebase like HISE cannot target 10.14 or 10.15 from Xcode 27 regardless of distribution channel

So 10.13 to 10.15 etc are completely out for Xcode 27, but can it build for 11 (even if 12 is the minimum for App Store) is still an open question.

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus Where are you seeing that info?

[dannytaurus]

@David-Healey Same page:

Deprecations in Xcode 27 Beta
The following items have been deprecated or removed:
The minimum supported deployment target on macOS for the C++ standard library has been increased to 11.0.

[David Healey]

@dannytaurus Interesting, looks like they are also phasing out Intel support when they eventually limit the minimum deployment to 27.0 - probably a few years yet.

I'll just stick with my existing build system for now until it no longer works.