How future-proof is the M1 MBA?

[Taustin Powers]

Thinking about picking up a refurbished one for my son's birthday. Performance wise, it will be plenty enough for his needs. But how long do we expect it to support new OS versions and features?

The alternative would be to buy a new M3 for me and give him my M2. We'd both be a little more future proof, but it's also more money plus the hassle of setting up a new computer for myself.

 

[mcru21]

I'm not sure how much longer support will continue for the M1 but I would guess that it should be supported for at least the next few years. As far as having to set up a new computer for yourself, apple makes it quite easy to clone your old machine to your new one during the setup process, if you wanted to take that route. It's usually a pretty seamless experience

 

[Howard2k]

Nobody knows for sure but I'd assume 3 years of MacOS support and then another 1 year of security updates. So 4 more years is my guess.

 

[hanser]

Normally Apple gives security updates for 2 years after the last OS update, so that would be at least 5 years. And then you will get no new features, but you can continue using the machine if you use another browser that gets security updates like Firefox.

 

[RRC]

They only stopped selling it last year so no time soon... but as said above, no one really knows. The apple silicone could in theory get a longer life than the previous Intel chip models as the M1 is still a superb chip even if it launched today!

 

[lsquare]

They only stopped selling it last year so no time soon... but as said above, no one really knows. The apple silicone could in theory get a longer life than the previous Intel chip models as the M1 is still a superb chip even if it launched today!

I couldn't agree more. Apple's chip design is second to none. The M1 is so powerful that even today it has fairly limited competition. Not even AMD and Intel can compete. Qualcomm just entered the market.

 

[MBAir2010]

Hopefully That M1 MBA will last much longer than the intel ones, we hope though!

i boxed mine up until today..... until i need that,
the MBA is great, just Monterey and  icloud does not agree with me now.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

Thinking about picking up a refurbished one for my son's birthday. Performance wise, it will be plenty enough for his needs. But how long do we expect it to support new OS versions and features?

The alternative would be to buy a new M3 for me and give him my M2. We'd both be a little more future proof, but it's also more money plus the hassle of setting up a new computer for myself.

They are still selling them at Walmart, so it won’t be ending support anytime soon.

 

[HDFan]

But how long do we expect it to support new OS versions and features?

All of the above advice is right based on past history. However everything is changing with the introduction of AI. It requires major hardware resources. There is likely going to be a new hardware race and there is no way to predict how long until we reach stasis, a state which we have been enjoying for many years with traditional computer hardware.

If you don't care about AI then all of the advice sounds good. If you have interest in AI there is no way right now to predict the future.

 

[Torty]

All of the above advice is right based on past history. However everything is changing with the introduction of AI. It requires major hardware resources. There is likely going to be a new hardware race and there is no way to predict how long until we reach stasis, a state which we have been enjoying for many years with traditional computer hardware.

If you don't care about AI then all of the advice sounds good. If you have interest in AI there is no way right now to predict the future.

Even if you don’t care about AI it’s deeply integrated into the OS and it‘s part of OS will become bigger und bigger, eventually it’s not possible to deactivate it. So HW might become become obsolete more quickly and dropped from OS support.

 

[majkom]

If you buy m1 with 16gb ram you are much mire future proof towards AI than anyone with m2/m3 with 8 gigs of ram

 

[Thedragon67]

from a reliability standpoint I have found the Airs to have a lot of issues compared to Pros, I feel like rather than upgrades for future-proofing, I would just spend the money on a Pro (any pro)

 

[kitKAC]

from a reliability standpoint I have found the Airs to have a lot of issues compared to Pros

Oh really? Such as?

 

[eltoslightfoot]

from a reliability standpoint I have found the Airs to have a lot of issues compared to Pros, I feel like rather than upgrades for future-proofing, I would just spend the money on a Pro (any pro)

Tell me more.

 

[Funny Apple Man]

from a reliability standpoint I have found the Airs to have a lot of issues compared to Pros, I feel like rather than upgrades for future-proofing, I would just spend the money on a Pro (any pro)

Are you talking about the same M1 Macbook Air? The 2018/2019 Airs with the butterfly keyboard, sure, but the M1 Air is top notch when it comes to reliability.

 

[DaveEcc]

All of the above advice is right based on past history. However everything is changing with the introduction of AI. It requires major hardware resources. There is likely going to be a new hardware race and there is no way to predict how long until we reach stasis, a state which we have been enjoying for many years with traditional computer hardware.

If you don't care about AI then all of the advice sounds good. If you have interest in AI there is no way right now to predict the future.

Since the M4 is the first chip to significantly change the AI capabilities, and it's not yet available in Air or Pro form, this is potentially one more reason to get a cheap M1 Air now instead of a more expensive M3. You'll use it for a few years, and upgrade into an AI capable machine a couple generations in when the immediate AI growth begins to slow.

If you buy a more expensive M3, and upgrade for AI in the same timeframe, you'll have spent more overall (but had a faster machine in the meantime). Sure, the M3 may buy you a few more years of support before you need to upgrade, but if you're able to wait that long, then that means there wasn't much of a compelling argument to upgrading to a more AI capable machine the first place.

If we expect AI to be compelling, and you're not made of money, either buy the cheaper M1 system now as a stop gap, or wait until M4 launches.

 

[G5isAlive]

Since the M4 is the first chip to significantly change the AI capabilities, and it's not yet available in Air or Pro form, this is potentially one more reason to get a cheap M1 Air now instead of a more expensive M3. You'll use it for a few years, and upgrade into an AI capable machine a couple generations in when the immediate AI growth begins to slow.

If you buy a more expensive M3, and upgrade for AI in the same timeframe, you'll have spent more overall (but had a faster machine in the meantime). Sure, the M3 may buy you a few more years of support before you need to upgrade, but if you're able to wait that long, then that means there wasn't much of a compelling argument to upgrading to a more AI capable machine the first place.

If we expect AI to be compelling, and you're not made of money, either buy the cheaper M1 system now as a stop gap, or wait until M4 launches.

You make a compelling argument… my first thought on seeing this thread was that the words ‘future proofing’ and a 4 year old computer (in design if not parts) do not go together. But I do agree the M1 could be a good stop gap until the AI dust settles.

 

[G5isAlive]

The alternative would be to buy a new M3 for me and give him my M2. We'd both be a little more future proof, but it's also more money plus the hassle of setting up a new computer for myself.

I feel compelled to tell you that if you do an encrypted backup to the cloud or Time Machine, setting up is maybe 15 minutes of your time with a couple of hours of the computer doing the rest for a really really easy set up process. Just saying.

 

[JamesMay82]

My 2014 iMac still works fine and so does 2015 MacBook Pro. Granted they are both 3 OS upgrades behind but all the latest updates are so minor I can’t really tell the difference between the OS

 

[raythompsontn]

good stop gap until the AI dust settles

What dust? I saw an advertisement for an AI electric toothbrush. Everything is AI as that is the new buzz word.

 

[G5isAlive]

What dust? I saw an advertisement for an AI electric toothbrush. Everything is AI as that is the new buzz word.

exactly. some of it will be pure meaningless buzz, some of it will be real. I am a wait and see person, Apple says it's real and going to be amazing. maybe it will be. maybe it won't. I dont tend to speculate. thats the dust I refer to. Right now we have Apple plans. Next year we will have some reality.

 

[Dr_Charles_Forbin]

Hope it’s the standard 7 years. I just bought an M3 MBA because my 2015 MBP is losing security updates in September. Plus, since I’m WFH with an M2 studio.. the lighter MBA suits my use case. Just don’t get 8Gb. I future proofed mine as best I could by getting 24GB RAM. I can always add external storage and I can put things in the cloud if needed. Not that much difference between an M1 and an M3 anyway.

 

[Bazza1]

Future-proof? The clock is ticking the moment you buy it. That said, the clock is set ticking most often by Apple - not the users or 3rd Party software providers.

The demands of subsequent Apple OSs (most often with "Squirrel!" features - like the upcoming 'Apple Intelligence' - rather than fixes to issues in existing OS) and how they coerce users to move to these new OSs (tying security updates to the OS), is the manner in which they encourage users to buy newest products that users really don't need to get.

While I have a M2 Mini at home, I still have a 2017 MacBook Air - which was disqualified from OS updates a couple of versions ago - as my travel / work computer. Thing is, a majority of the 3rd Party apps (and all of the Apple ones, including sync to iCloud) I use on my M2 also work on the Air. Some are older versions, but most are not.

The only true way to future-proof your purchase is to take a good look at yourself and your needs (not promotionally-hyped wants), and get the device that best suits those and your wallet. All else is glitter, rainbows and unicorns.

 

[Dr_Charles_Forbin]

Agreed.