Apple Silicon SoC platform support (M1/M2/M3/M4)
Low-level platform support for Apple's in-house ARM64 system-on-chip designs used in Macs and iPads since 2020, including the M1, M2, M3, and M4 families. It provides the mailbox interface that lets coprocessors talk to peripherals like NVMe storage and the display controller, plus power-management and DMA-address-filter (SART) helpers that the rest of the Asahi Linux stack builds on.
recommendation
It should stay because this is the active platform glue that makes Apple Silicon Macs (M1 through M4) usable under Linux, including the mailbox channels coprocessors use for NVMe and display and the SART DMA-address filter. Apple was still shipping new M4 Macs in 2025 and the directory continues to receive regular mainline fixes and features, with no replacement in sight.
repository signals
sources
- git.kernel.org
Upstream `drivers/soc/apple` is still seeing regular mainline activity rather than removal staging.
- cateee.net
`CONFIG_APPLE_MAILBOX` is present in current kernel ranges and documents Apple SoC mailbox support used by coprocessors for peripherals such as NVMe and display.
- apple.com
Apple was still launching new Apple-silicon Macs in 2025, so the underlying hardware family was still sold new.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Real driver directory, not a helper-only subtree: local `rg` found `module_platform_driver` entry points in `sart.c` and `mailbox.c`. Local `git -c safe.directory=... log -- drivers/soc/apple` showed substantive fixes/features through 2026-01-18 and only a 2023 move of `apple-pmgr-pwrstate.c`, not retirement. A lore-style public-inbox search was attempted via shell using `lei q`, but `lei` was unavailable; a follow-up web search found no removal/deprecation discussion. Sources were obtained as follows: LKDDb and Apple newsroom via web search; kernel.org log URL by canonical recall, used to anchor the locally observed maintenance history. This is active enablement code for currently sold Apple Silicon systems, with no upstream replacement driver for the same role, so the correct hint is `keep`.