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Apple silicon chips are special !

Astuces iOS

Astuces iOS

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 17, 2023
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Imagine they drop the support for the m2 mba in 5 years… then are they going to drop the support for the Mac mini m2 also? If they do are they going to drop the support for the MacBook Pro (since mini and mbp shares the m2 pro chip) then if they do are they going to drop the Mac Studio and if they do are they going to drop the MAC PRO on the same year as the M2 MacBook Air? Very interesting subject what you guys think…

Ps : it would be kinda special to drop support for m2 for example but not m2 pro
 
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I don't think these M Chips are all that special,
my experience with AMD and Nvida processors don't gather and concrete systems data like  M series does.
also the other two are faster, can handle as much data and problem cheaters than 's.

oh well....

added Sunday mar 9

also  decided ho along these M1 chips will be spurred, as the basis of these will be the sam was the M9 chips
if they get greedy or speculate that many will "waste-heap" their m1s, they will discontinue support for them.

therefore this is up to us to not proclaim (as current trend now) that these MacBook m1s are OLD!
 
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Probably apple will not support a chip not a family of chip
So in 2 years maybe m1 devices will drop for macos but m1 pro will last one more year
 
Well as there was a lot of talk about “set for 10 years” when the M1 Studio launched so expect 7 years OS with 3 years updates for last OS that supported.
 
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Astuces iOS said:
Just curious… when apple will drop the M1 chip or M2… how they are going to do it??? Imagine they drop the MacBook Air M2… are they going to drop the Mac Pro too?
Click to expand...
Apple does not dramatically "drop" chips. They just age out after 5+ years, or more likely the computers RAM out. Apple provides security updates for years after they stop OS updates. But some folks just go on using their old Macs anyway, kludging OSs, coping with old app versions, etc. Makes no sense to me but there is a substantial niche that does it routinely.

I guess I am in that niche because I use a 2016 MBP pretty much every day, and it works fine (running Monterey, 16 GB RAM) as long as I do not try to multi-task. I do not attempt any software kludges. I use an M2 MBP with 96 GB RAM for the real work.
 
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The best way to reuse old macs is a linux system. That will be also true for m series macs.
Second you can use open core legathy patcher to run newer systems but this is not really secure.
My old core2duo mac mini was hardly usable 8 years later with a modern system, but my late 2015 27“ imac can handle the latest mac os using oclp very well. This is why people like using their macs longer than before and are disappointed when support drops.
Currently it is unclear what macs will drop support at what time. Pre m macs are dropped by model, that means support was dropped for all imacs late 2015 at the same time independent on the processor (i5 or i7). If apple keeps that the support of macbook pro with m3 and m3max will expire at the same time.
However it is very hard to explain why a mac mini m2 will be longer supported than a m2 macbook pro only because the mini was much later updated to the next generation and sold longer.
 
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Guenter said:
The best way to reuse old macs is a linux system.
Click to expand...
I plea to differ..
My MacBook air from 2010 is running fine on Snow Leopard
while my MacBook Pro 2012 is on Mountain lion and more reliable than my MacBook Air 2020
internet-wise!
linux crashed on both units last year, fedora and mint while ubuntu was limited
as far as installing peripherals which were tedious and at times impossible.
 
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Astuces iOS said:
Imagine they drop the support for the m2 mba in 5 years… then are they going to drop the support for the Mac mini m2 also? If they do are they going to drop the support for the MacBook Pro (since mini and mbp shares the m2 pro chip) then if they do are they going to drop the Mac Studio and if they do are they going to drop the MAC PRO on the same year as the M2 MacBook Air? Very interesting subject what you guys think…

Ps : it would be kinda special to drop support for m2 for example but not m2 pro
Click to expand...
As your query is somewhat cryptic with "imagine" and "ifs" (I read it twice and still confused), the best answers I can guess at are: "possible maybe", or a "probable perhaps". ;)
 
No one really knows anything, probably including Apple themselves.
Just looking at past patterns with iPads and iPhones…
The A5 and A5X both were supported through iOS 9
The A6 and A6X were both supported through iOS 10.
The A8 was supported through iOS 12 while the A8X was supported for three years longer until iOS 15
The A9 was supported until iOS 15 on the iPhone and iOS 16 on the iPad,the A9X was also supported through iOS 16.
The A10 is the most confusing of them all but i’m guessing the iPad seven still receives support for some education reason.

So… the answer is inconclusive.
Apple might stick with the M1 as the base specification required for several years in a row, this would not surprise me.
Previously, we have seen four consecutive versions of the operating systems with the exact same requirements, those being mountain lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, and El Capitan.
I think they’ll keep the M1 as the base Mac for a long, long time, but even that hasn’t happened yet. Intel machines are still supported.
 
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Lounge vibes 05 said:
No one really knows anything, probably including Apple themselves.
Just looking at past patterns with iPads and iPhones…
The A5 and A5X both were supported through iOS 9
The A6 and A6X were both supported through iOS 10.
The A8 was supported through iOS 12 while the A8X was supported for three years longer until iOS 15
The A9 was supported until iOS 15 on the iPhone and iOS 16 on the iPad,the A9X was also supported through iOS 16.
The A10 is the most confusing of them all but i’m guessing the iPad seven still receives support for some education reason.

So… the answer is inconclusive.
Apple might stick with the M1 as the base specification required for several years in a row, this would not surprise me.
Previously, we have seen four consecutive versions of the operating systems with the exact same requirements, those being mountain lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, and El Capitan.
I think they’ll keep the M1 as the base Mac for a long, long time, but even that hasn’t happened yet. Intel machines are still supported.
Click to expand...
Good comparaison with A5, A6, A8, A9… this might helps with iPhone A18 vs A18 Pro (they might have the same iOS support) unfortunately it’s crazy with M series chip : we have normal (M1), we have pro (M1 Pro), we have max (M1 Max), we have Ultra (M1 ultra) and we have a ton of chips which are randomly placed between chips for example M2 is between M1 and M1 Pro, M3 is kinda similar to M1 Pro… M4 seams a bit better than M2 Pro…

It would be very hard for apple to have a macOS compatibility list… since products are also sharing chips apple will need to macOS requires for example: M1 Pro OR M3… or maybe : macOS Xx requires a Mac with M4 chip or later OR M2 Max chip OR M3 Pro or Maybe like M1 Ultra… LOL
 
Astuces iOS said:
Imagine they drop the support for the m2 mba in 5 years… then are they going to drop the support for the Mac mini m2 also? If they do are they going to drop the support for the MacBook Pro (since mini and mbp shares the m2 pro chip) then if they do are they going to drop the Mac Studio and if they do are they going to drop the MAC PRO on the same year as the M2 MacBook Air? Very interesting subject what you guys think…

Ps : it would be kinda special to drop support for m2 for example but not m2 pro
Click to expand...

Progress happens. Old stuff get old. It's kind of in the name. Windows is STILL paying for decisions made by MS-DOS back over 40 years ago. Would you rather be in that boat? Because it is still there. They sell lots of tickets. Grab a seat on the USS Windows.

Are you suggesting that Apple should support older architecture forever? Because Microsoft, Intel, and AMD sure don't.
Are you suggesting that Apple should stop adding new features to chips so that newer systems can remain remotely compatible? I remember when 3D acceleration was added, MMX, MMX2, 3DNOW!, x86_64 and others. I watched computers go from 8 bit to 16 bit to 32 bit to 64 bit. We may be watching them go quantum over the next 20 years. I would prefer not to stop progress just so someone can cling tenaciously to their 10 year old box and pretend it is still just as good as the new stuff.
 
Astuces iOS said:
Imagine they drop the support for the m2 mba in 5 years… then are they going to drop the support for the Mac mini m2 also? If they do are they going to drop the support for the MacBook Pro (since mini and mbp shares the m2 pro chip) then if they do are they going to drop the Mac Studio and if they do are they going to drop the MAC PRO on the same year as the M2 MacBook Air? Very interesting subject what you guys think…

Ps : it would be kinda special to drop support for m2 for example but not m2 pro
Click to expand...

Given that a) there are still some Intel machines supported under Sequoia, and b) the M-Series is a completely different ballgame in terms of support, speculation on how Apple will phase out support for older M-series chips is based on nothing but supposition and assumption at this point in time. Nobody can say for sure whether Apple will drop an entire generation at once or break it down by specific variants within the generation until we have seen at least two generations lose support.
 
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