14 DAY TRIAL // Apple published a new blog post on Friday on its developer website reminding all devs that it will no longer accept 32-bit apps in the Mac App Store starting January 1, 2018.
During the WWDC 2017 conference in June, Apple warned developers that 32-bit apps would go extinct for both iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra operating system, though the latter is still supporting them.
The company now informs application developers that they will no longer be able to submit 32-bit apps to the Mac Store Store starting next month, January 1, 2018, as well as that they need to update their existing apps to 64-bit until June 2018.
"As a reminder, new apps submitted to the Mac App Store must support 64-bit starting January 2018, and Mac app updates and existing apps must support 64-bit starting June 2018," said Apple in today's announcement.
macOS High Sierra is the last to support 32-bit apps
According to Apple, macOS High Sierra is the last macOS release to support 32-bit apps without compromise. The next major macOS release, 10.14, which the company will announce next summer during WWDC 2018, will be 64-bit only.
macOS is not the only computer operating system out there to ditch apps using the inefficient 32-bit code, as many Linux-based OSes are starting to move to the more efficient 64-bit architecture, including the popular Ubuntu and Arch Linux.
Apple highly recommends application developers to consider distributing their apps in the 64-bit format outside the Mac App Store to make sure users can continue to run their apps on upcoming releases of macOS.
Apple's Developer Program makes it easy for developers to distribute apps to millions of Mac users worldwide, and you should check it out if you want to learn more about distributing macOS apps. The future is 64-bit, and everyone should embrace it.