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Apple's M1 MacBook Air Drops to Low Price of $699 on Amazon
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Do you have official statements from Apple to support that claim?
Apple was selling the M1 Macbook Air on their website just a few months ago. (discontinued March 4, 2024) The countdown timer to unsupport doesn't start counting down when Apple first starts selling a product but when they stop. Apple has a tradition of supporting their devices "x" number of years after it has been discontinued.
Yeah, they're stuffing AI features into all the next OS releases, and at some point the NPU's in M1 or M2 chips wont be good enough to handle all the bloat, so they'll cut it off.
Feel free to revisit this post in 2 years when it happens
That's smart. My macBook is 12 years old and still kicking but I want something newer. I may take the plunge with my Prime visaAwesome
Amazon finally matched Walmart’s price:
Walmart Begins Selling MacBook Air With M1 Chip for $699 in U.S.
Walmart today announced that it has started selling the MacBook Air with the M1 chip in the U.S., with pricing set at a very reasonable $699. The...www.macrumors.com
It’s actually now cheaper if you buy it through Amazon (using the Amazon credit card) which gives you 5% in rewards
My guess is M1 will be supported for a long time but without the AI enhancements in the upcoming OS versions.
That's a safe bet. It would be highly uncharacteristic of Apple to drop support for the M1 Macbook Air in 2 years.
$699 is a great price for a new Mac OS computer. (I picked one up back in March for $650 at Costco and I've been able to do everything on it that I use my M2 Mac Mini for) That little laptop is a beast (in a good way).
I'm not interested in changing the mind of anyone who thinks it is a poor purchase, just to encourage those who ARE interested in it that it is indeed good.
The core problem is security updates. If I bought a "new" Mac today, and its not getting security updates in 24 months, that will be a concern.
It would be nice if they just said when the updates were going away, as my wife has a seldom used older Mac that I have concerns about...but I'm not replacing with another machine that's only $50 cheaper now than it was 18 months ago.
No, the software support clock starts the moment Apple launches a product. This has been documented with many products. Check Ars Technica for a review of macOS support life.
iMac 21.5-inch was discontinued in 2021. It only supported one major macOS update, then was dropped in Sonoma.
Apple Discontinues Intel-Based 21.5-Inch iMac
Apple has quietly discontinued the Intel-based 21.5-inch iMac, which had remained available as a low-end configuration suitable for educational...
www.macrumors.com
Historically, Macs received support for major macOS updates for only 6-7 years after launch. M1 MBA is a nearly a 4 year old product. That means only 3 years left. The extended updates from Apple are selective and do not cover all known security issues.
Depends what you mean by "long time" but I wouldn't call 3 years that.
That is one major reason I didn't bother getting a used M1 MBA this year, despite the recent drop in used M1 pricing. The other major reason is I am hopeful the next MBA (M4?) will get 12 GB base.
This is what I got for that price:
www.microcenter.com
Acer Nitro V ANV15-51-54UL 15.6" Gaming Laptop Computer Platinum Collection - Obsidian Black; Intel Core i5 13th Gen - Micro Center
Get it now! Elevate your gaming adventure with the Acer Nitro V 15, your gateway to an adrenaline-charged journey. This laptop is the perfect blend of power and style, pushing the boundaries of whats possible on a laptop.
I traded one in to Best Buy before Christmas for 525$. Amazing deal.
I hope you're right, but I think that's unrealistic. It will cost them money to do that (testing costs alone aren't trivial). It doesn't mean you can't use it for 10-years, it just means that at some point you won't get the latest OS features and upgrades.
I agree. Everything has gotten 'supisiciously' powerful lately and software isn't keeping up with the hardware. I think (well, I hope...) we're going to see massive changes in computing in the next couple of years that will actually make use of the CPU performance we have in these devices.
I think you'll be good for security patches for much longer than 24 months from date of last sale. I mean the last Intel MacBook Pro was 2019 and it still got MacOS 14 Sonoma.
Why? Traditionally support cycles are around when a Mac ends its sales cycle, not begins it.
Apple hasn't even dropped Intel yet. My guess would be M1 MBA will receive the last OS upgrade in 2027
I'd rather they just lay it out so we aren't guessing. They've also dropped support for devices the day after they stopped selling them too.
They are unlikely to do that. 1) They never know when some technical issue might age out a device i.e they only see so far into the future. 2) it would give the device a perceived shelf-life at time of sale which can only hurt sales.
I didn’t realize they had dropped support that quickly before. Which devices?
It was common place in the iPhone time to have the device be fully unsupported after 2 years. They also dropped support for some of the PowerPC and Intel mac's fairly quickly in certain circumstances. I doubt it will happen now as they don't have an evil company to say "they're the problem!" but it would be nice for them to give assurances.